John Carter: Reality
by Freelancer 205
Summary: Sequel to John Carter: UNSC Marine Corps. Please R&R. Enjoy new Chap.
1. Prologue and Chapter 1

Prologue

The human race, so naive, yet able to progress so much…even to near extinction.

The Mayan Indians predicted that the world would end on December twenty first 2012, they were correct…to an extent.

October, 2011- Stresses over foreign oil importation and control spreads to small scale attacks by radical militant groups seeking to plunge the earth into the third world war. US military leaders intervene, forty thousand troops deployed.

January, 2012- Tensions rise as militant groups become more effective and are suspected of receiving armament from local oil controlling countries. Large scale assault by US land forces presses forward.

March, 2012- War exposes secret oil fields, held behind enemy lines. First nuclear strike launched since World War Two.

August, 2012- Large remnant of civilian population left on earth is evacuated to robotically constructed Mars base. Fighting continues on earth.

December 20th, 2012- Cease fire and treaty between all nations laid out, fighting ends.

December 21st, 2012- The horde emerge and strike out at humanity.

No one knows exactly where the horde came from, how they came about, or why. What is known is that they infect any one misfortunate enough to be caught up in their jaws, only adding to their already staggering numbers.

The remaining humans on earth, considered by many to be a stubborn lot, stay to fight the horde and retake what was rightfully human kinds to begin with.

This small force of humans, numbering only about a million total all around the globe, are separated by many miles between each of their own self erected strongholds, known by many of the population on Mars as cities of hope.

I am among those that stay to fight for the survival of earth. My name is John Carter, I joined the Marine Force Recon training school at age seventeen and quickly progressed through the ranks to that of a captain. I stay and defend the city known by the few of us in it as _Eden Nine. _

Chapter 1: The Call That Changed Eden

"So when did they say that these…objects would touch down most likely?"

"In about another hour or so."

"Good, and it, or they, should touch down roughly seventy miles northeast of here, correct?"

"Yeah, that's right, hey John."

"Yeah Ben."

"What are we supposed to do if this turns out to be a first contact scenario?"

"Well, we are going to follow our set protocols for here and hope to God that if it is extraterrestrial life, that they aren't hostile and if they are, just waste 'em."

"Okay, but when you say hostile…"

"Toward us Ben, us, humans, not the fucking horde, they can be as hostile as they like to the horde, but don't get your hope up too high, there might not even be any 'aliens' when we get there, could be just some space rocks."

He nodded and then looked back at me and asked, "How many we takin' with us on the trip out?"

I thought about his question for a moment and then gave my answer.

"Just a team, no use in a whole squad going if its just rocks and I don't want just two people up against a possibly hostile alien force."

He nodded again and we then got up to go get into our humvee's and head on out to see what we could see.

Little did we know that this would be the call out for my team that would change not only Eden Nine, but everything thought possible about other life.


	2. Chapter 2: The Welcome Outsider

Chapter 2: Welcome Outsider

En Route to estimated touchdown area of unidentified objects: Lead vehicle of convoy

"Hey Cap, what do you want us to do if it does turn out to be extraterrestrials?"

Though hearing his query, I simply sat still and silent in the passenger side seat and watched through the windshield for any signs indicating that there was any of the horde in the area, there were no signs and it unnerved me to no end, for I was always terrified that the horde could perhaps become more intelligent and figure out how to move without leaving evidence, though, it was highly unlikely.

"Captain Carter, did ya' hear me. What are we supposed to do if it turns out to be extraterrestrials?"

I kept my focus on the view through the windshield and answered his question.

"You know our protocol; unless you did not read the Eden manual; do not fire upon them if unless they do so to us, don't fuck up any chances we might have at an intergalactic peace and alliance, and third, keep the previous rule in your mind the whole time. Do you understand now?"

"Yeah cap', I got it."

"Good, you two in the back want some tunes to pass the time?" I said as I turned around to look at them as I asked and they both nodded in reply. I nodded back and set my M4 SOPMOD rifle, muzzle facing up, against my leg and hooked up my MP3 player to the extremely modded in vehicle radio system and just let it play. We drove along for about another twenty minutes and the GPS beeped, notifying us that we were within five miles of our desired destination. I turned down the radio and looked quickly to one of the two marines in the back of our humvee and without me needing to even ask he said, "Nothin' on radar Cap'n."

I then turned back around to my original watch out the front windshield and scanned around in the distance, trying to see if anything was there and then I saw something, and then saw it again, and again. It seemed to be a flash of some sort of very dim bluish white light and at this I turned to the driver of our vehicle and said, "Did you see that just now?"

"What, what'd'ya see cap'?"

"I thought I saw several pulses of bluish light, there it goes again, see it?"

"Yeah, I just caught the end of it that time. What d'ya think it is cap?"

"Dunno, maybe heat from one of the things that came through the atmosphere."

"Yeah, maybe so."

As the driver and I were talking in the cab of the vehicle, the marine monitoring the radar screen in the rear piped up and exclaimed, "Captain, I'm getting a strong radar signal now, directly ahead of us, one mile."

I nodded and re-gripped my M4, readying myself for what may come.

Meanwhile: Location of the aforementioned pulses of light

"_Oh my god, I'm going to die here. Where are you? Ughh, what are these thing, they just… keep… coming."_

The injured individual fired a few more shots from its blaster weapon at one of the approaching enemies and watched it fall to the ground. The individual then refocused her aim on another of the approaching foes and unloaded yet even more plasma into it from the relative safety of the broken cockpit window she was pinned under from the abrupt, impromptu landing. As she kept sitting there in her pinned down position, she slowly began to lose grip on reality and darkness slowly enveloped her vision, creeping in from the outermost edges of her peripherals and slowly in towards her direct line of sight vision and shortly after, she slumped back in her cockpit seat.

Back in the vehicle

The driver accelerated to the limits of what the humvee could handle and we sped on towards the location of the source of bluish light pulses we had just recently seen, with myself climbing into the rear portion of our transport to access the fifty caliber machine gun turret, though it was very difficult to do so, being that the amount of bumps and potholes were far more than on normal, even backcountry dirt or gravel, roadway.

I managed to get into the machine gun turret and stood up through the roof hole to grip the massive M2 Browning. As we neared ever closer to our destination, I could see that The Horde was about, though in a rather small mass and attempting to attack something in the midst of the crash site of the unidentified object and as we neared even closer to it, I could make out, even through the darkness of the night, that it was some type of downed aircraft…and definitely not human. The others in the humvee noticed the downed aircraft as well and began remarking as to what it was while I steeled myself for the situation we were about to encounter by running through my head all the things I had learned about various members of The Horde.

"_Center mass, no good... Headshots, instant kills, take 'em down."_

We continued to drive on toward our destination, only stopping roughly half a mile from the touchdown area of the unknown craft, myself looking over it with my night vision and thermal goggles and establishing the variety of the threat and establishing that we would have to move quickly and decisively against the enemy foes in the area, even though their numbers were few and less a threat than what we had dealt with before. Our new issue now was that we may have to deal with whatever or whoever was currently in the newly discovered and crashed aircraft.

With this in mind, I gripped the firing handles of the massive fifty caliber machine gun and our convoy moved on towards the craft, myself firing one round at a time from the thousand round belts, trying to catch the attention of the hive minded enemies.

Once we were within two hundred meters of the downed craft, the enemy masses had given full attention to us and were on a collision course with our humvee and I opened up full auto with the M2, quickly cutting down many enemy forces and causing bodies to be ripped, broken, torn, and altogether destroyed. Blood along with various and asundry body parts littered the area, leaving a gore altogether unimaginable all along the path that The Horde had taken to charge our vehicle.

By now, the other two vehicles in our convoy had opened fire and were quickly reducing the enemy numbers to a more manageable level, which assisted me, being as I had to put a new belt on the gun to keep firing.

After another solid minute of the three fifty calibers firing and humvees driving into enemy drones, the enemy horde was reduced to nothing more than blood and guts around the entire area. We then slowly approached the downed craft, the headlights of all three vehicles lighting the area in the darkness of evening/dusk.

As our vehicles closed in on the downed craft, my eyes scanned over its body for markings of any kind to signify it and found none…or so I thought. When the three vehicles got to within twenty meters of the craft, they stopped and I got on my helmets comm. link to the others in my small team.

"All units…hold your positions. I will go and investigate the craft, be ready for my signal and watch our six."

I dismounted my position at the gunners' seat and exited the side door of the humvee after a few moments of rearranging personnel in the rear. Upon exiting the humvee, I scanned from left to right with my weapon, making sure the area was clear. Upon establishing that it was, I walked on in my crouched position, weapon trained on the unidentified craft, towards the downed aerial vehicle.

As I neared the crafts port side, I noticed something I was not able to see earlier in the evening darkness…a familiar symbol of a fictitious mercenary group.

Not believing my eyes, I lowered my rifle and reached out, touching the craft with my gloved hand and feeling that it was solid under my touch.

As the realization of what the symbol really was, hit me, the sound of a pained groan coming from the cockpit caused me to snap my attention, and weapon, back to the cockpit window and slowly stand back up to peer in through the partially broken windshield to see what had caused the noise. What I saw caused me to be taken aback more so than I ever thought possible.

Upon peering in through the broken glass, I lowered my rifle and let my jaw simply drop, being as an injured anthropomorphic, azure furred vixen looking back up at me in a visibly pained and highly fearful manner.

As I stood there, a familiar voice came over my comm. unit.

"Yo John, what's up man, we all saw you almost fall backwards when you touched that craft. Everything alright man?"

"Yeah…I mean, no. No everything is not alright Baker, you need to come up here and see this for yourself."

"Roger that, anyone need to come along?"

"No, jus' you…this is gonna blow your mind man."

"K, I'm sure you're right." He said in a sarcastic tone of voice.

I simply stood in awe of what I was seeing as I heard Ben getting out of the humvee to my rear and begin walking towards my position. As he reached my position, his sight wasn't set on the craft or what was in it…that changed shortly after however as he walked up to my side and got a full view of what I was staring at.

"Holy shit…dude, that's, that's uhh, damn man."

"Yeah, I know."

"Well, what are we supposed to do with it?"

"Uhh, follow our protocol, duhh, you dumbass."

"Fine, I get it man, but uhh, do you wanna get it…wait a second, it looks crazily familiar, the fur, this ship…oh my god, its one of the things from the story you're writing, that…Starfox story, thing."

I simply nodded in response to him.

"Whoa…so uhh, what's its name, ya know?"

"Well, her name is Krystal."

"Okay, but where are all the others from this uhh, Starfox team thing?"

"I don't know man, but come on, let's get this windshield off and get her back to Eden."

He nodded and we both slung our M4's to our backs in a synchronized, highly practiced

Fashion and I reached up to grab the glass through the broken area of it and pulled away from the main amount, trying to create an opening wide enough to fit my arm through and try to open the hatch from the inside, however, as I pulled the first piece of jagged glass away and stumbled back from the force it broke off with, the windshield hatch opened up and back and Baker stood up from the other side of the craft holding a small handle type pin and said, "Who's the dumbass now?"

I simply gave him a sarcastic smirk and step up to the side of the craft again, the sole occupant still looking up at me, less fearfully now, more hopefully and managed in a weak voice, "Help…me…please."

That, again, took me aback and I looked over to Ben, who looked as confused as I did at the moment. We pushed the present confusion aside and I reached into the confines of the cockpit with my KA-BAR and cut the safety straps holding the individual into the cockpit seat and with Bens help, gently lifted her out of the seat by holding her under the armpits and by the wrists.

Upon lifting her out of the cockpit, Baker walked around to the side of the craft I was currently on and helped me position her onto my shoulder in a fireman's carry so as to transport her back to the least occupied vehicle.

As I walked along with her up on my shoulder, I could see some of the men in my team stepping out of their vehicles in order to see more clearly what/who was on my shoulder. I walked past them and caught one of them out of the corner of my eye reaching for her tail, causing me to stop and turn abruptly to face the marine, giving him a threatening warning by saying, "Don't even think about it soldier."

He raised his hands up slightly in a defensive posture and backed away as he said, "Whoa Cap', take it easy man."

I simply turned and continued walking towards the empty humvee, as it was our med-evac vehicle. I set her inside so as she was lying on her back and climbed afterwards, shutting the rear door after me.

I gave the driver the signal to go on and we began the long drive back to the city. As we drove along, I assessed the new beings' injuries as best I could, myself not being familiar with the alien anatomy, and wrapped her lower leg up in a small bandage to try and stop some of the bleeding caused by broken shards of glass the had managed to pierce her flight suit.

As I did this, she raised her head up off the slightly padded floor of our medical vehicle and managed to give a slight smile.

She then slowly let her head lay back on the padding and closed her eyes, drifting into what seemed to be a rather peaceful sleep as we continued to drive along.

Roughly an hour later, Eden Nine main entrance

Our humvee pulled up to the main gate of the city and I watched the guard upon the sniper tower overlooking the gate give the all clear signal to open the gate to the individuals guarding the immediate area behind the strong barrier.

Until this time, however, Krystal had been sound asleep, but apparently felt the slow but rather bumpy stop of our vehicle outside the gate to the city and woke back up, slightly sitting up to see where we were at, more appropriately, where she was going.

We simply continued on through the cities' entrance, armed guards standing on either side of the vehicle, making sure that none of The Horde would even remotely make it through the gates. As we drove on, the driver of our vehicle looked into the rearview mirror and inquired, "Where you want to go Cap'?"

I thought about his query for a moment and replied, "Jus' go ahead and take me to my home lieutenant."

He nodded and we broke off from the convoy and began making our way down a quiet street way, heading towards the subdivision I called home.

As we arrived at the entrance to my neighborhood, I looked out the window of the humvee and read the sign that welcomed everyone to the neighborhood; Welcome to Cedar Acres.

I smiled a bit as I read the welcome sign, feeling glad that I had made it home in one piece once again.

We drove on through the subdivision and finally arrived in front of my two story home, I was slightly disappointed, however, that I could not clearly see the fine stone work and various other aspects about my homestead that I enjoyed so much in the early night time darkness.

The driver of our vehicle slowly guided it into the driveway out front of my house and stopped it. He then turned around in his seat and asked, "What do you want to do with our, uhh, new visitor Cap'n?"

"Hmm, I will keep her here, under supervision and call in if something arises that I can't handle."

He nodded and I proceeded to get out of the vehicle and once completely out, I then proceeded to remove Krystal from the vehicle and place her back up on my shoulder, which was done with a bit of difficulty as she was, still, sound asleep.

I then dismissed my lieutenant to take the vehicle back to the main, municipal armory.

I watched as he drove off for a few moments and then let Krystal slide down from my shoulder so as to carry her in a cradle position, which would probably prohibit further injury to her leg and other body parts.

After repositioning her, I turned bout and began walking towards my front door.

Upon reaching it, I reached down and allowed my hand to rest on the biometrics scanner, which, in turn, unlocked my front door. I opened the door and walked in, closing it with my foot behind me as I held Krystal up, though it proved difficult to not step on her tail as I walked towards my living room.

Upon reaching my living room, I laid her down on the couch, resting her head on a small throw pillow and cut on a nearby lamp resting on the end table so I could inspect and work on her leg wounds.

As the light spread into the room, I looked over her torn flight suit and realized that her leg injuries were rather minor. I took my helmet off and left hand glove, as my right one was already off due to the need of my hand being scanned and proceeded to take off my armored vest after un-slinging my rifle from my back.

After doing these few simple tasks, I pulled a small footrest up to the front of the couch and sat upon it, more closely inspecting Krystals' damaged calf area.

After looking at it and establishing that the only way to get to the wound clearly was to remove the flight suit leggings entirely, I opted for the less perverted looking option and unsheathed my KA-BAR knife, carefully cutting through the tough material the suit was made out of from the back of her knee down to the top of her boot and peeled the cut section up and back, exposing blood matted fur and small, but still deep, cuts from what appeared to be a type of shrapnel. I then proceeded to remove the larger pieces of shrapnel I could get out with my fingers, using a pair of tweezers from my small medical kit to get the ever smaller pieces out, all the while wondering how this shrapnel could have gotten into her leg…I could tell it was not from her crash landing.

"_My god, what is this shrapnel made of? It seems almost partially organic matter, weird. Hmm, I hope that she wakes up in a relatively good mood…who am I kidding, this is Krystal…McCloud? Maybe?"_

I let my mental musing wander on as I continued to work on her leg, pulling out shrapnel and cleaning the same area with alcohol swabs very late into the night.

Roughly five hours later, 0143 hrs

I finally finished the cleaning and dressing of her leg wound and stood up with a yawn, arms outstretched, my back popping slightly as it readjusted from being somewhat bent over for so long.

As I turned about to walk to the other couch, I nearly tripped over my large "roommate", a three year old Bengal tiger named Max, who had likely snuck in to investigate the new scent I had brought into the house…he has, however, proved to be a large reason as to why I cant keep a girlfriend around very long though, something I'm not that proud of.

"C'mon Max, time for you to go to bed bud."

The large tiger got up off the floor and sat in front of me, still looking at the figure lying on the couch, not wanting to leave until he had found out what it was. I, however, got him to leave by pulling out his chew toy and tossing it into the master bedroom, the large cat following it quite eagerly. I then closed the door behind him and walked over to the shorter sofa and grabbed the throw blanket, spreading it over Krystals form on the large couch, myself sitting back on the sofa, leaning back to sleep yet another watchful night.

The next morning, 0938 hrs

I had been up for about an hour and was in the process of making myself some breakfast as I had already taken a morning shower.

After making a quick breakfast of some eggs, bacon, and biscuits, I walked back into the living room of my home and resumed my watch over Krystal, assuming she would wake up shortly…I was correct.

Roughly ten or fifteen minutes after I sat down on the sofa to eat, the figure under the throw blanket began to stir slightly, seeming to be groaning in pain slightly as she tried to sit up.

As she stirred, I set down my plate of food and got up, walking over to assist her. As I stood up, her ears twitched back in my direction and she became completely still, asking in a small, scared voice, "Fox, is that you there?"

I was taken aback greatly at this, her speaking English clearly, having not been from earth or anything.

I fought past the initial shock of her speaking and forced up enough courage to walk towards her again.

As I began walking towards her again, she turned her head about to see me and upon laying her eyes on me, seemed filled with fear, and instantly reached for her blaster, which I had removed from her leg holster the previous night. Not finding her blaster seemed to invoke further fear in her and she attempted to let out a scream, which was just barely halted by me grabbing her by the muzzle, an act that probably scared her more so, though I had no ulterior motives in mind.

As I held her muzzle and she attempted to scream and fight my hand off, I simply spoke in as soft a voice as I could to try and keep her from panicking any more.

"Hey, I'm not here to hurt you okay. Remember last night, you crashed, I and my team saved you from your deathtrap of a ship. Now I will let you go if, and only if, you promise not to try and scream again. Do you promise me that?"

She nodded her head the best she could with my hand still grasping her muzzle and I said, "Okay then, I'm letting go now, I'll take a step back."

I let go of her muzzle and took a step back from her whilst she still half sat, half lay on the couch. She simply looked up at me, mouth open in shock, eyes wide in amazement at her seeing the first human ever.

"You, you saved me last night?"

I nodded at her and a look of immense relief fell over her entire complexion as she realized that I was a friend, not an enemy. Her expression, however, changed up rather quickly to one of worry as a new realization hit her…she was the only anthropomorphic being in the room.

"Where are the rest of my teammates at?"

"I have good news and bad news about that, so, uhh, which would you like to here first?"

"The good news please." She said with a bit of a longing look in her eyes.

"Well, the search party I sent out last night hasn't found any bodies resembling the makeup of what we saw of yours."

"And the bad news?"

"We haven't found any trace of the other three members of your team. I will be glad to accompany you on a personal search and rescue mission if you wish, considering that your leg is healed up sufficiently." Was my response as I motioned towards her bandaged calf area.

She felt the bandages and injured are and said, "You did this Mr., uhh, I don't believe I got your name sir."

I smiled slightly and said, "Sorry, the name's is John Carter, Captain John Carter to those of which I command, but I go by several names."

"Oh, okay then, could I just call you John then?"

"Sure, I was about to ask you to just do that…Krystal."

Her eyes got rather wide at my mentioning of her name without us having formally met at all.

"How, how do you know my name?"

"It's a long story, but if you want to go find your teammates with me, then I need to get you suited up and armed sufficiently. Please follow me."

I helped her up off the couch and led her into the den area, which branched off into the dining room and a short, but wide hallway leading to a staircase to the basement.

She followed me down the hallway and then down the stairs to the basement and I flipped a switch on the wall, illuminating my basement, AKA The Neighborhood Armory.

Her mouth dropped a bit at the staggering amount of weapons lining the walls and various cases standing about, tables in the middle of the large basement main room with stripped down weapons lying on them, various parts in various stages of customized gunsmithing.

"Are these all yours?" was her only inquiry.

"Yeah, most of them atleast, wait a second, are you hungry at all, you were out for a long time?"

"Now that you mention it, I am very hungry, before I crashed, like a day before, my emergency food supply in my arwing ran out."

"Okay then, what do you eat, just describe it to me a bit and I'll go get something from my pantry upstairs."

She took a few moments to explain to me what types of foods she ate and it dawned on me that she was mostly a vegetarian, with slight supplements of meat here and there.

"Alright then, I'll be right back."

I turned about and ran back up the staircase to the den and made my way to the kitchen pantry, opening the door, I quickly scanned the shelves for what I was looking for.

"C'mon, where are they, where are they, aha, there you are."

I reached into a box and pulled out a handful of fruit filled granola bars, Nutri-Grain brand and grabbed a bottle of water out of my refrigerator.

I then made my way back downstairs and to the basement, finding Krystal standing by one of the tables set up in the main room.

As I came into her view, she looked up and saw that I had brought some type of small packaged food along with me.

"Here, catch." I said as I tossed a granola bar over the table.

She reached up and caught it in one hand with practiced precision and read the label aloud.

"Nu-tri Grain?"

"Yeah, its like an energy bar here, but healthy for you as well. Oh and I got you some water as well."

I then tossed her the bottle of water and she caught it in her other hand.

"Thank you, you really are kind, I thought the crash may have impaired my ability to sense people's motives and emotions, but I guess it did not after all."

I nodded, not really paying attention to what she had said, as I was busy perusing the various and asundry weapons in my armory and glancing back at Krystal every once and a while to look over her build, which she took as me 'checking her out'.

"You're not checking me out are you?"

"What, no, I just have a knack for pairing people with weapons based on their build; I was sizing you up per say."

"Oh, what weapon would I go well with then?" She asked before taking a sip of water from the bottle I had brought her.

"I was thinking either an MP5 or n M4 and for a sidearm, definitely an MP5-K. I think for the main weapon, I'll stick you with the MP5, it's light, easy to aim and very accurate, as well as having good stopping power."

She nodded and I pulled out the two selected weapons for her, along with a vest covered in pockets ready to accept full MP5 mags.

I handed her the vest and said, "Please put this on, it will hold your ammo."

"Ammo, what's that?"

I gave her a bit of a funny look and said, "Oh, blasters, gotcha. Ammo is round pieces of metal that are fired from the gun, very effective against almost anything."

She nodded and I handed her the vest, along with a pair of digital urban camo cargo pants and a knife, for a tail hole.

She put on the requested articles of clothing and I then handed her weapons, explaining the quick rundown of how each worked and how to reload them. After I handed her her weapons, she asked in a bit of a concerned tone, "John, do you think that the rest of my team is still alive?"

"Well, I uhh, I can't say for sure, but there is a chance, I mean, we found you intact didn't we?"

She nodded and I smiled a bit and said, "C'mon, let's go find the rest of your teammates."

She nodded again as that was something she really wanted to do. She followed me back up the stairs, showing no signs of pain from her leg at all, I only hoped that it would heal fully.

When we got back upstairs, I put my armored vest back on and grabbed up my M4 rifle, slinging it around my back and motioning for Krystal to follow me to the garage area.

I led her out into the garage and she got the first look at a human vehicle, my 1992 model Toyota 4-Runner, black, four wheel drive and also my first car when I was back in high school.

She could only ask, "What is it?"

"Well, it's a uhh, civilian class transportation machine, a vehicle if you will."

"Oh, back on Corneria, civilians use hover cars to get around."

I simply nodded and began walking down the few steps from the door entering the garage to the concrete floor which my vehicle rested on. Once down on the concrete floor, I made my way around the drivers' side to get in, opened the door, and got inside. Once inside, I reached across and unlocked the passenger side door so that Krystal could get in.

Once it was unlocked, she pulled on the door lever as I demonstrated to her from inside the vehicle and opened the door. Getting inside, she remarked at how much more spacious it was than the hover cars back on Corneria…An unending torrent of questions soon followed afterwards, yet I answered each and every question to the best of my ability and focused on driving as well.

I could already tell that his was going to become a rather interesting day for me and the rest of the Starfox team members.


	3. Chapter 3: Reality Check

Authors Note: alright everyone of my loyal readers, all like six of you, I am sorry for the long waits in between updates and do hope you will forgive me, but I have an excuse for it all! Its a one word excuse and we all know it...**SCHOOL!!!**. Yeah, the wonderful thing that everyone loves, and also...Please review this story and tell me what you all think of it (It helps both my esteem by letting me know that people are out there that like my stuff and also, it helps me write better).

Chapter 3: Reality Check

_All I could think was that this was going to be an interesting day for me and the rest of the Starfox team members._

As I sat in my black 4runner, driving through the exit to the city known as Eden nine, Krystal sitting in the passenger seat beside me, I kept my eyes fixated on the road in front of me, almost worried that if I looked to my right and glanced at her sitting form, that all this would disappear, that she would be gone and I would be left with nothing more than desolation again in this God forsaken land we humans called Earth.

Earth, who were we kidding when all the politicians and naturalists said, "Save the planet."

Save the planet…save the planet, that was their cry to everyone, but everyone still drove their cars, smoked their cigarettes and pretended not to litter the face of the earth by covering it up…with earth. No, we were all too good for that, too good to save the planet when what really needed saving was all of us…humans. Like my friend always says, "Either very productive…or entirely destructive."

As I sat in my SUV and we continued traveling along, Krystal turned her figure towards me and said, "John…John…c'mon buddy, its time to wake up. Wake up man or we're gonna be late today."

Her statement took aback quite a ways as my mind tried to process what she was saying…it did not, however, get the chance to do so.

A moment later, I was lying in my bed, soaked to the core with freezing cold liquid…my long time best friend, Ben Baker, standing over me at the side of the bed with an empty five gallon bucket, trying his best to hold back a flood of laughter at my expense.

I simply looked at him and what he was dressed in and it hit me like a freight train, there was a massive Airsoft scenario game today, and my Airsoft mercenary team was assisting another team…we were also getting paid quite a bit for our service today as well.

Without a word other than, "Get the fuck out, I'm gettin' dressed. Be down in two." I leaped out of bed and began to rip through my dresser drawers at an amazing rate, pulling out digital urban camouflaged pants and a dark grey tee-shirt to accompany it, the words Etre et Durer embroidered onto the back and the front of the collar in a steel grey color.

As I finished getting my clothing items on, I grabbed my wallet and shoved it into my rear pocket and grabbed my Airsoft M4 rifle and slung it around my back. I then grabbed my leg holster for my M9 CO2 Airsoft pistol and slipped it up and onto my leg, attaching it to my belt with the appropriate strap and slipping the nine millimeter mock pistol into it, extra mags on another leg holster on my opposite left leg.

As I walked out of my room, I grabbed my tactical vest and slipped into it, checking the pockets as I made my way down the stairway so as to make sure that all ten M4 mags were there and my five spare pistol mags as well. As I got to the bottom of the stairs, I sat down on the second to the last step and grabbed my black combat boots, slipping them on, blousing my pants at the bottoms, and lacing the boots up tight.

As I was doing this, I looked up to see that my whole team had arrived and was already in my house and helping themselves to whatever they wished, which was something I did not give a damn about any way one looked at it.

As I surveyed my team, I recalled mentally what each of their positions and ranks were, as we were the only Airsoft merc team with a rank and file structure.

Five members in all, including myself. First Sergeant Ben Baker a.k.a. Hawkeye-team sniper and assault, Specialist Jessica Cole a.k.a. Doc-team medic and supply/support, Staff Sergeant Blake King a.k.a. Pyro-team anti tank and demolitions, Lieutenant Terry Rawlings a.k.a. Tech-team communications and radio, and myself, Captain John Carter a.k.a. Black Fox-team leader and assault.

I surveyed my team and without any hello or formality, said, "Equipment check, needs, swaps, or malfunctions?"

"Medic here, all good." Was her response in between mouthfuls of poptarts.

"Hawkeye, good to go."

"Pyro here, I need a few more 'nades 'k."

"Tech here, no static on the lines sir."

I nodded and said, "Pyro, I got a case of 'nades in the basement, go get 'em along with a crate of our ammo. Tech, help him with that will ya?"

They both nodded and headed off to their tasks as I finished tying my boots completely. After I tied them, I walked over and grabbed my mock rubber KA-BAR from my dining room table and attached it to the rear of my right hip on my belt via a small clip located on its hard carbon fiber sheath.

I then nodded to the rest of my team members and the three of us headed outside to the vehicles, knowing that our other two teammates would not be far behind us.

As I climbed into my vehicle, I looked at the large six barreled minigun that we used in major assault battle openings to soften up the enemy forces a bit. As I sat there in the driver's seat, I thought back to when we first got that thing.

When we got it, our first objective was to get it mounted in my vehicle. It took us about a week straight, but we finally got it mounted and were all so happy when it was done that we actually celebrated the event.

I was pulled away from my thoughts as Blake and Terry put the two crates of grenades and ammo in the back of my vehicle and got in, myself starting the engine as they did so and pulling out of the drive shortly thereafter, Baker following closely behind us with Jessica in the passenger seat.

We drove on for roughly an hour, exchanging stories over our in ear comm sets and listening to music on the various radio channels that we passed in and out of until we finally came to the place at which the 'war' was to take place that day.

As we pulled into the main entrance of the enormous thousand acre compound, complete with urban environment set up all along the property, an armed guard stopped our vehicle and asked for our identification papers.

I handed him our team paperwork and stated that the vehicle behind us was with our party as well. He nodded and looked over the paperwork, checking it briefly with his colleague in a small toll booth. After looking over everything, he raised the gate and directed us to go down the road and take the right in the fork, as the left led to the teams' base which we were fighting against.

We drove on and took the right turn in the fork, heading to our respective base.

As we moved along the back road, which was easily accessible outside the Airsoft field parameters, we took to surveying the general layout of the field and mentally getting a picture of how the battle could play out, making sure to include many possible variables. We also watched the individuals that set up the field, examining the types of vehicles they were bringing out and since this was a militarily hosted competition on an actual decommissioned military base, many military style vehicles were being used. Some included old but still effective humvees and APC's along with some civilian type vehicles likely salvaged from a local scrap yard and quickly refurbished for a one day use. Many of the civilian type vehicles had fresh looking bullet holes all along their sides, back and fronts, making the war torn look of them be all the more realistic.

As we took in the various sights and drove along, we finally arrived at our respective base, at which we stopped our vehicles and dismounted, pulling our weapons and ammunition supplies out with us to take into the base. As we did this, I noticed a few people giving us odd looks, likely new to the area and never heard of us, but, however, their gazes were not set on us directly but more so, on our weapons and ammunition, as they all looked real. The fact was, they were real, to an extent. Our weapons were actually real M4's, M9's, sniper rifles, and machine guns. Our ammunition was all rubber bullets, gauged to go at only half the speed of a traditional round used in live combat while still using gunpowder as its propelling force.

This is the part of our team that makes us so terrifying to everyone else on the field; weapons that won't run out of battery of lose their capability to propel a round at its correct and exact velocity each and every time we pull the trigger, in short, we had reliable guns.

We then carried our respective cases of ammunition and weapons into the base compound, seeking a place to set up our teams' headquarters. We finally found a spot to, on the second floor directly beside the chow hall and as said by Doc, "Hell, you couldn't have dropped a better headquarters spot out of heaven."

As we set up our positions, Hawkeye taking the window to get his Barret sniper rifle assembly set up along with Tech moving into position beside him to set up the radio, as he served as Bakers spotter and our ears on the field, the rest of us simply took ammo, whatever it was for, and set it up around the room. Mainly we set it up on the table top in five mag groups for easy grabbing when needed. While Pyro and Doc set out the ammo stores, I took to setting up out rapid feed mag loader, which was like "a stripper clip on steroids."

As we continued to set up our station of operations, the base commander of whose team we were assisting that day, walked in. As he did so, I saw him out of the corner of my eye and instantly stood upright as he entered the room and made everyone else in the room aware that he had entered by stating, "Officer on deck."

The rest of my team members instantly dropped their tasks and snapped to the position of attention, respecting the fact that an officer had entered our room.

He smiled a bit and said, "As you were."

I then extended my right hand to shake his, greeting him as I did so.

"Good morning Lieutenant Colonel Bullman."

He smirked slightly and returned my handshake, replying, "'Morning Captain Carter. I presume you and your team are top notch condition today?"

I nodded and looked over my shoulder to see that the rest of my team was back to working on their gear sets, giving last minute checks and runs on it to make sure it all was in working order.

I then turned my head back to look at the resident officer of our base and waited for him to give me certain details pertaining to the upcoming two day long battle.

"Okay then Captain, we have a few but relatively helpful details gathered through our Intel team."

I nodded and he then proceeded to give me the details pertaining to said battle, explaining various things such as the predicted attack route of the enemy force and their overall numbers in general.

After he took those few moments to explain to my team and me about possible enemy strategies, he handed me a map of the battle grounds and their limits, as well as showing the locations of both ours and the enemy forces base, with outposts marked with a bright orange circle all in between.

As I glanced over the map, Bullman asked, "Will you be needing anything else Captain Carter?"

I looked up from examining the map and replied, "Just one thing commander, the rules of engagement please?"

"Ah, yes, those would be helpful wouldn't they?"

I nodded and he then said, "Alright then, today is war rules day. If you get shot in the leg, you lose that leg, in the arm, you lose that arm, and one shot to the head or torso and you're dead....meaning lay on the ground till someone comes and brings you back to the base where you will recuperate for six hours before you can rejoin the fight, but you can only begin recuperating after someone brings you back to base. Got it cap'?"

I nodded and then saluted him. He returned the salute and then exited my teams' room, leaving us to go back to preparing for the attack.

As I turned about to get look back at my team, I glanced down at my watch and began counting down.

"Ten...Nine...Eight...Seven...Six...Five...Four...Three...Two...One...Zero."

Hour one of forty eight had just begun.


	4. Chapter 4: Black Ops and Luck

Chapter 4

"Combat is not measured in hours, days, or victories. It is measured in seconds, trigger pulls, shell casings, and losses."

-Unknown

* * *

"Command, this is fire team bravo, we are meeting strong enemy resistance at designated outpost alpha-niner. Requesting immediate fire support from any available ground units, possible sniper teams, artillery strike, anything you guys got. I say again, fire team bravo is being overrun at outpost alpha-niner. Arty coordinates are as follows; bearing four seven two, grid pint charlie eight eight niner by foxtrot four two zero. Anyone, we are in need of assistance here."

At outpost alpha niner, fire team bravo had taken heavy casualties and was running low on ammunition. The enemy forces were mainly attacking from the north side of the outpost and were relentlessly firing at anything that moved from within it. The commander of fire team bravo, second lieutenant Mark Evans had just run out of ammunition for his M16 and was now using his desert eagle side arm as a primary weapon. He watched as an enemy soldier stood up from behind the cover all the invading forces were utilizing, wielding a rocket launcher, a.k.a. a bunker buster.

Lieutenant Evans feverishly attempted to get his fire team to focus their firing on the enemy with the rocket launcher, but to no avail, Evans' troops were busy keeping enemy forces out of the outpost. Evans peeked back up through the window that he had been firing through and watched the enemy soldiers' finger tighten around the launchers' trigger system when all the sudden, the soldier that was about to doom the entire fire team bravo, fell backwards, to the ground, dropping the launcher and lying limply. Another soldier tried to pick the launcher up, but repeated the same process, only this time, falling forward.

Private Comm Channel/ designation 4539-43:

"Excellent shots, target moving left, two hundred meters, visual in three...two...one."

Another enemy soldier fell to the ground.

"Dead center, perfect. Alright, pyro, you flank left, soften up the lines with 'nades. Doc, you're going right, same tactic. I'll take center line and draw fire, on my mark....Mark."

The three of us rushed past houses and various burnt out vehicles at a full sprint, splitting of from each other to move into position, the enemy forces were completely unaware that their rear flank was left entirely open.

As I ran on, I watched the enemy line for targets of greatest threat, as it would be advantageous to deal them out of the game first. As I crouched behind a small vehicle, I waited for the sound of grenades to go off, as that was my cue to begin the rear assault.

A few moments later, the first grenades went off, taking several enemy troops out as soon as it went off. That grenade was followed by another, and another, each of them softening up the line more and more.

I then switched my rifle to three round burst and began to fire in a sweeping motion at the line, taking out many enemy soldiers with burst after burst. After ten pulls of the trigger on my M4, I was dry. I retreated back to the cover provided me by the small vehicle and dropped the empty magazine out of my rifle and loaded a fresh one back in. allowing the bolt to go home, I switched to full auto and laid down a suppressive fire on the enemy line that caused for the rest of the enemy troops to simply fall down under the onslaught.

I then stood up, the line had fallen apart and my sniper spotter team was picking off the last of the enemy troops that were retreating.

I jogged up to the base outpost, gave the all clear signal, and walked inside, Lieutenant Evans saying, "Gah, 'bout friggin time some one showed up. Thanks."

He shook my hand and then motioned for his radio man to call back to headquarters for a casualty pick up. My team exited the outpost and began to make our way back through the dense urban area towards the enemy base, where our goal was, to capture the base.

My tactic was to allow many of the enemy troops to leave in order to fill in the deficit created by our forces.

My strike team and I found a two story building in which to stand on watch and wait.

**Roughly 5 hours later: 2258 hrs**

My small strike force had been sitting and watching enemy base for five hours now and had managed to take out roughly nineteen enemy troops with well placed shots from each of us, without revealing our position.

As total darkness set in, I pulled out my flashlight and slipped the red lens over the normal clear one and switched it on. Setting it on the floor, I pulled off my small gear pack and extracted a few items from it, one of which was a silenced MP5-K, which I strapped to my left leg holster. I then pulled out two silencers, one for an M4 rifle and one for an M9 pistol and attached both to their respective weapons.

I then turned to my teammates and said, "If I am not back in two hours, fall back to the main base and regroup, Tech has the code three orders." They both nodded and I climbed out of the two story window, much lighter now as I had left my vest pack and the bulk of my other gear back in aforementioned building, only taking with me two extra mags of M4 ammo and all the pistol and MP5 ammo I could carry in my leg holsters, which equated to four extra MP5-K mags and six more M9 mags. The only extra ammo for my M4 was in the mag already.

I jogged along, remaining completely silent as I moved through the night. As I neared the enemy base, I stopped and crouched to the ground, watching for any movement that would constitute a threat and found none; I then surveyed the exterior of the base for a way in and being that it was similar to our base, I found one rather quickly. A thick gutter drain from the roof would serve as my entry to the third floor area. I moved towards it, listening to isolated firefights out somewhere behind me in a remote part of the battle field.

I moved up to the gutter with practiced motion and silence and grasped it with my gloved hands and placing my right foot on the wall, began to silently step-climb up the wall. As I reached the third floor windows, I stopped and peered slightly into each window on my left and right side, and found the room on the right to be empty.

With this new knowledge in mind, I shimmied off the gutter and onto the window sill and pushed it open, allowing it to spin inward and to the left of where I was hanging. Once it was fully opened, I pulled myself up slightly and peeked in and finding the coast to be clear, I slowly and silently heaved myself up and onto the window sill and with the skill of a cat, dropped into the room, the silence echoing in my ears.

I then allowed my eyes some time to adjust to the darkness and once finished, made my way to the door of the room I had entered and opened it slightly, finding only one lackadaisically acting guard in front of it. Upon seeing this opportunity, I silently opened the door all the way and pulled out my Airsoft legal KA-BAR inert hard rubber drill knife and grabbed the guard from behind, covering his mouth and pulling him back into the room, "slitting his throat" as I did so, and laying him down on the floor in the darkness.

I then made my way out of the room and down the dimly lit hallway, sticking close to the wall and allowing it to provide me with cover with its shadows. As I kept moving down the hallway, I found a map marking fire exits to the base hanging on the wall and quickly memorized all the locations and directions of them, for I was planning on sabotaging the entire enemy base.

**Roughly one hour later: Main Friendly Base, second floor**

"Hey Tech, you think the strike team's been too long?"

"Yeah, now that you mention it, they've been gone for what, two hours without radio contact. I'll buzz 'em real quick."

"This is Tech to strike team one, do you copy?"

A few seconds passed and finally, strike team one came in over the radio.

"Yeah, gotcha Tech, what sup?"

"Nothin' really, just makin' sure yall aren't dead or somethin'."

"Nah, we all good over here...except...uhh, how should I word this...hmm..."

"Well, what is it then?"

"Blackfox, kind of...left us...alone. in other words, he went on another solo."

"What, you're messin' with me aren't you Blake, please tell me he didn't really go solo again."

"Yeah, he did, said you had orders for if he got taken down."

"Well I don't!"

"Oh...shit. Is Hawkeye still with you?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Because he can give John sniper support from where you two are at right now. He could take out guards or somethin."

"Yeah, and I think we have his night vision scope with us as well...let me go see real quick..."

"...yeah, he's got it with him, and he's puttin' it on the rifle now, see you two in a bit."

"Aight, strike one out."

**Back at enemy base: Same time frame**

_"Ahh, fucking air conditioning lines, why the fuck are they made so small? What if I get stuck, oh no! Ha, John, stay on task...yeah, on task, focus."_

As I continued through the air ducts, and tried to humor myself with witty mental conversing, I felt I was slowly getting closer to my goal; the bases' electrical room, with which, I could shut down the base and put everyone in the dark...literally.

After roughly five more minutes of shimmying through the dusty ductwork, I found my goal and, though eager to carry through with my self ordained directive, was not about to compromise my entire mission, though I had almost done so earlier when I got careless and walked out in front of a guard and though I acted quickly and took him down with a knife attack, that was way too close for my blood.

So, I sat, and sat, and sat, waiting for the perfect moment to drop down into the room and dole out some psychological damage to the enemy forces, even though I had already blocked off fire and emergency escapes, I wanted them to feel the full brunt of psychological warfare, which unlike regular battle, mentally breaks down your enemy by showing him that no matter how good his defenses are or how well his plan was thought through, it just wasn't good enough to keep someone out of his very barracks in the night, when all is quiet and all is safe.

I had already doled out a rather serious mentally fatiguing attack on the commander, because as he had been sleeping thirty minutes earlier, I had taken parachute cord from my gear set and wrapped it under his bunk and over him, tying it off ever so lightly so he would not awake but tight enough do that when he did, he would find that getting out of bed would be harder than getting in.

I chuckled slightly to myself as I thought of this and resumed my vigil on the room below me and after ten minutes of watching, found that no guards made rounds through the room. I then drooped down through the vent and landed on the solid concrete floor with only the slightest thud and made my way over to the electrical box, opened it, and yanked out the main fuse, using the whirring sound of the bases' power supply shutting down to hide the sound of me crushing the fuse with my boot on the floor.

I then closed the panel and exited the room; running through the hallways at a half crouched posture and kept my M9 drawn the entire time, firing to silent shots into an unsuspecting guard's chest as he stepped around a corner.

**Back at friendly base: Mercenary team, sniper room**

"Holy shit, did you just see that, the power to the enemy base just cut off. You think they're trying to fool us or somethin'."

"Nah, that was John, he does stuff like that all...wait, he just ran through my crosshairs, yeah he just passed another window. He just fired two rounds from his M9...fuck, he's under fire. Tracking targets...got a bead."

**Back at enemy base: Corridor to main exit**

I stayed crouched behind a crate as hundreds of rounds passed by, only sticking out my hand occasionally to fire off a round or two from my sidearm.

When all seemed lost, I slightly peeked around the side of the crate, knowing I was likely to not get hit due to the enemy's poor night vision and tried to get a solid aim on one of them, though it was nearly impossible, because of the level of fear in them...they simply would not stand in one place, from side to side. The enemy troops continued to strafe left to right and vice versa...directly in front of a window.

With no warning whatsoever, the window shattered inward and one of the three enemy personnel in the corridor fell to the ground, writhing in pain from the side of his chest, followed directly afterwards by the two other enemies.

Taking this window of opportunity, I got up and sprinted on, making my way with due hast towards the exit to this base.

As I moved into the main entrance area, several enemy soldiers were there at the main door, but were quickly cut down with a sweep firing motion of my MP5-K, causing the entire mag to be emptied out. As I kept moving at the same pace, I re-holstered the automatic submachine gun and unslung my M4, holding it in a manner that someone would if they were running in combat and, as I reached the main doors, I kicked them open, and kept sprinting fully out into the open night air, briefly looking up into the sky for some odd reason to see a fire ball descending through the atmosphere.

I dismissed it as a shooting star and even quipped to myself, "Ha, lucky me, a shooting star on my way out of a successful black ops. That has to mean something good."

Little did I know that that seemingly innocuous shooting star would change my team forever.


	5. Chapter 5: Whoa

Chapter 5: Whoa

"What the hell were you thinking John, really this time, just tell us, please?"

"Uhh, I wasn't...thinking...clearly that is. You know what?"

"What?"

"I don't think...I just do stuff...shoot first and ask questions later."

"Yeah...well, you're not master chief ya' know."

"Yeah, but we got the same first name and all."

"True...who am I kidding...you're hopelessly brilliant at war. No one can talk sense into you because you are too stubborn to listen."

I simply nodded and said, "Good job Doc, you're getting better at this whole thing of letting leader go and doing what leader say...good Doc."

I smiled a bit as I made this comment and the rest of my team and I resumed eating our breakfast in the room we had chosen the previous day and it went on relatively silent until Cole finally broke the silence...again.

"Hey, did anyone see that shooting star thing last night or was it just me?"

"Oh, you've actually got a good question this time."

"Ha-ha, very funny Blake, but seriously, did anyone else see it?"

"I did...I saw it as I was leaving the enemy base last night, considered myself lucky as fuck."

The rest of the team chuckled at this considering that Hawk' and Tech explained to them all how they saved my ass.

"Yeah, lucky that I can snipe a fly at a thousand meters."

"Ya know, I don't remember ordering a side of 'lets bash Blackfox with an extra helping of cocky on the side' with my breakfast this morning."

"Aww shucks, ya know we messin' right?"

"Did you know I was too?"

Everyone smiled a bit and we simply went back to carrying on small talk and having jovial conversation with one another...completely forgetting the fact that a giant fireball fell from the sky last night.

As the rest of us neared the end of our meal, Baker completely finished and tucked the empty food packet into his cargo pocket and resumed his post at the window, watching the field and taking out straggling enemy forces. As he brought his eye up to the scope and scanned the field, I watched his facial expression change to one of slight confusion and before he could make a comment, I asked, "What is it Hawk'?"

He looked back over at me and said, "Uhh, I don't know, but I don't remember seeing that right there, it's something completely new. Come see."

I walked over and he moved away from the rifle, allowing me to put my eye up to the scope and survey the new finding on the battlefield. As I looked at what he saw, I commented, "My god, that wasn't there yesterday. I'm gonna go check it out okay."

They all nodded and I grabbed my weapons and gear and made my way out of the room, reaching up to my ear to activate my comm system as I walked down the hallway.

"Hey Tech, patch a direct feed through to Hawk' will ya'."

"Sure thing...just a second...k', it's up, you're good to talk."

"Thanks Tech."

I continued to move down the hallway and descended down the stairwell that led to the main floor and the exit, nearly running into a certain lieutenant I had met earlier the day before.

"Oh, Lieutenant Evans, nice to meet you again. I trust you and your fire team are rested and recovered fully?"

"Yes, thanks for asking, we actually just received assignment to go out on a morning raid on the enemy base. Somethin' about the power goin' out and their commander being tied to a bunk in his sleep by black ops personnel. Reports say that a four man team entered through the roof and descended through the base, wiping out enemy forces like nothing, cut the power and jammed all the fire/emergency exits shut, along with what happened to their commander. Some crazy shit, so wish us luck, we're gonna get 'em before dawn fully sets in."

I nodded and allowed him and his ten man fire team exit the base before I and load into two separate APC's. I watched as they rolled off towards the enemy base, but then turned my attention back to my original mission at hand, investigation of the new object on the battlefield.

I walked along, casually, not minding anything in particular, just keeping my eyes peeled for movement in my periph's.

I moved along and came to within about one hundred meters of the new object and stopped. As I crouched down, I reached back up to my ear to activate my comm unit.

"Hawk, you see any movement in the area?"

"Nope, clear, move in."

"Good, just take shots if you see movement okay."

"Will do."

I ended the radio transmission and went back to focusing on how to approach this new object; my final decision was to walk up to it.

So...I did. I began walking towards it and as I came closer, it resembled more and more of what a jet fighter looks like, but with a more angular and sharp design.

I kept moving towards it and trying to process what was going on in my mind...though doing so was quite abruptly interrupted by, of all people, Hawk'.

"And here we have the Carter. A rather strange specie of animal that is very closely related to that of the specie homo sapien. As can be seen here, the Carter is quite confused as to what new technology has appeared in its territory. Its confusion is easily shown by the way it looks at our position here in this building. Now, for those of you at home, we may have to end this broadcast prematurely if the Carter feels threatened and proceeds to charge our filming position. But, back to facts about the Carter. It readily stands..."

"Baker."

"Huh."

"Chill."

"Okay...As we have just witnessed, the Carter has managed to hack our radio line and communicate with me. What a remarkable creature...join us tomorrow for our next installment of up close, and dangerous."

I shook my head a bit, smiling as I did so, remembering that that was partially the reason I became such good friends with him and proceeded to return my attention back to the task at hand...attempting to find out the meaning of this new item on the battlefield.

As I moved closer to the...jet, I noticed that a small hatch was open on the side, towards where the craft met the ground and that the compartment had been filled with something, possibly supplies, which were all taken out and nowhere to be seen. I assumed the pilot had taken out whatever was in it and retreated off the field, fearing possible capture if he was not an American pilot.

I moved around the rest of the craft and studied it, knowing I had plenty of time to do so, hearing the constant, yet distant, rattle of assault rifles and small arms firing in the direction of the enemy base.

After observing the exterior for an ample amount of time, I climbed up the nose of the craft and peered down into the open cockpit, seeing a small disc shaped object in the pilot's seat. Not knowing what it was and thinking it may provide me with an idea as to where the craft was from, I picked it up and examined it a bit closer...mentally wondering at the markings and designs around its outer rim, which I could not differentiate from design or markings of earth, yet they seemed familiar to me. I placed the disc shaped object into my cargo pocket and looked around the interior of the cockpit for a bit longer and finally allowing my gaze to settle on a single object in the control console...the keypad.

The design was so similar I nearly overlooked it, yet so out of place in a craft that seemed this complex...normal telephone digits in the 1-9 formation with the zero resting beneath the eight key and the keys were readable, not in a foreign language.

I instantly began to ask myself, "Is this some kind of air force project gone awry? Where is this craft based at? Why have we never even heard of anything along the lines of this?"

Little did I know that the familiarity of the craft is what caused its designation to escape my mind and thought process. I simply over thought the whole situation, not seeing the forest for the trees. Logic, it does that to ya'.

Not being able to figure out what the craft or its semblance was, I hopped down and began to walk back to the base, simply contemplating the situation in my mind and wondering why no one had heard the craft fly in and land as roughly as it did in the night.

I dismissed most of these thoughts though and simply kept walking, when, all of the sudden Rawlings yelled out over the comm system, "Runner, two o'clock, take the shot Hawk'."

I looked up to the window and saw Hawk's rifle tracking a target, turning around just as he fired to se an individual in the distance fall to the ground, holding its leg in pain yet staying low to the ground as well.

After surveying the situation that had just occurred, I looked back up to the window and said, "Nice shot Hawk'."

I just got an "Mm hmm." On my end of the comm and resumed walking back towards the base to get my 4Runner. Whoever this runner was that had just been taken down, I was going to find out, because likely, it was a certain pilot of a certain craft that I very much wanted to learn more about.

I finally got back to the base and climbed into my vehicle, inserted the key and turned over the engine, listening to it roar to life. After allowing it roughly five or so seconds to warm up, I put it into drive and began making my way out onto the field, moving in between bunkers and small vehicles strewn about as well as several small hut type buildings.

After a minute or so of driving, I finally came to the area where the individual had fallen and placed the large SUV into park, getting out and surveying the area some more. I finally reached up to my ear and said, "Hey Baker, you got any visual on that runner still."

A moment or so later, a voice came back over the comm, saying, "Yeah, whoever it is, is heading towards the out of combat zone area, do you want me to engage again?"

"No, I'll handle this real quick."

And with that, I got back into my vehicle and drove on, looking to my right and seeing the slight bobbing up and down of the top of a head and used that to plot my course to intercept the individual.

By now, however, the individual had made it roughly four hundred meters out of the combat zone and I had also reached him...or it.

Upon pulling up behind the individual as it tried with pained movements to get away, I first thought he was wearing a costume...I quickly realized I had assumed incorrectly.

I got out of my vehicle and said, "Hey, stop."

The individual continued to move away from me, turning its head around slightly so that he could see me and then kept on trying to limp away.

I finally decided that if the guy was injured and was limping away from me, then I could likely just drag him back to the base and talk there. I proceeded to do so, though upon jogging up to the individual, who was apparently a fan of frogs or something, as he was wearing an entire body frog suit, he pulled a weapon and fell onto his ass, waveringly pointing the play gun looking pistol at me, fear in his eyes.

I simply raised my hands a bit and said, "Whoa little guy, I'm not here to hurt you, I just want to talk is all, so uhh, just chill out, okay."

He still pointed the pistol at me with ever shaking hands and I slowly moved towards him, grabbing the firearm from his hands rapidly once I was in range to do so and placed it in my belt on my back, lifting the deeply terrified person from the ground by one arm and helping him walk back to my vehicle.

Once back at my SUV, I let down the rear window and allowed the tailgate to drop open, motioning for the person to hop up on the tail gate and stay, asking, "How's your leg?"

As expected, I did not get a response to my inquiry, so I asked it again.

"Hey you, how's your leg doing?"

He looked at me with those ever fearful looking frog eyes and said, "It hurts a lot."

This however, caused me to stumble back a few steps though, jaw dropped in amazement...it had finally hit me. The 'jet', the frog person, and he attempting to flee the area.

As it all hit me, all I could say was, "Sl...Sli...Slippy Toad...you're...real. Holy shit!!!"

He simply looked at me in stunned amazement and said, "Wha...what are you talking about and who are you anyway?"

In between near fits of hyperventilation, I managed to answer him.

"My name is John Carter, I am the captain of my mercenary team here and you are Slippy Toad, member and mechanic of the Starfox mercenary team, aren't you?"

He returned my look of stunned amazement with the same from his own persona, we were both equally stunned about this, he being stunned that I knew all about him and I being stunned that he was here.

In his stunned moment, I took the next turn to speak, something quickly crossing my mind.

"Slippy, where is the rest of the Starfox team, you have to tell me now."

He looked at me strangely and said, with concern in his voice at what my intentions were, "I...I was on my way to find them just now, why?"

"Because, I have to find them before the rest of my kind does."

He looked at me awkwardly again and I said, "You need to climb into my vehicle, we have to move now."

He, still in a state of shock and confusion, followed my commands and hopped down from the rear tailgate and limped around to get into the passenger side of the black 4Runner, heaving himself into it as I closed up the rear and the window entirely.

As I got back into the drivers seta, I reached up to my ear and activated my comm unit.

"Hawk', somethin' came up, I'm not gonna be able to finish the war games okay."

He asked why on the end of the line and I said, "After you guys win the competition, come over to my house, just you, alone tomorrow and I'll explain everything."

He gave his response on the end of the line and I cut the comm, throwing my SUV into drive and flooring it.


	6. Chapter 6: Contact

Chapter 6: Contact

_"Hmm, wonder where everyone else is at. I should probably try to contact them...nahhh, too much fun here to get it ruined; besides, they should be able to take care, at least for a little while."_

The pilot of the silver and blue craft continued to circle in the atmosphere over a very large field, with no signs of civilization in sight for many miles.

_"This atmosphere, it's like nothing I've been in back in Lylat. It's so thick; my maneuvers are so friggin sensitive now...I like it....wait, what's that on the horizon now, hmm."_

The pilot of the lone craft mused to himself as two dark grey craft neared his position, him not paying any attention to them until they were roughly right on top of his position.

Without any warning whatsoever, a voice blasted over his in ship intercom, saying "Unidentified craft, you are in restricted United States airspace. We will escort you to the nearest airbase. Comply with these terms or you will be shot down."

The individual piloting the unidentified craft seemed dumbfounded. His original thoughts were that this planet had no civilized life on it, much less an air force. He, against his better judgment chose not to comply and sped off towards the western horizon, the two USAF fighters following closely behind and keeping pace.

_"Damn, I can't shake 'em. They're too damn good for this."_

The fighters kept back roughly half a mile from the unknown craft and sent yet another radio communiqué to its pilot.

"Unidentified pilot, you have ten seconds to comply with said terms or you will be shot down."

This seemed to infuriate the mystery pilot to a high degree as he threw his craft into a u-turn and looped back around behind the two F-22 Raptors, attempting to get a clear shot off at either one.

The Raptors, however, reacted to the unknown pilots maneuver with practiced skill and steadiness, throwing off the mystery pilot's aim and causing him to instantly be put on the defensive...for his life.

It was no use. By the time the pilot of the unknown craft had mentally calculated what was happening, the bottom left side of one of the Raptors fuselages opened and one, three hundred and thirty five pound AMRAAM missile dropped out, its engine engaging after only about a ten foot fall.

The missiles radar homed in on the target, steering the massive high explosive fragmenting warhead towards the unidentifiable craft. Seconds felt like hours as the mystery pilot rolled left and right, trying with every fiber in his being to throw that weapon off course, but to no avail.

The missile closed the gap and its proximity fuse detonated, only feet from the fuselage of the craft, tearing through its ill equipped shielding system as well as through the reflective coated fuselage itself, crippling the craft and sending it plummeting towards the ground in a ball of smoke and flame.

"Base, this is Interceptor one, unknown target has been neutralized...no sir, there was no sign of an ejection or a chute...affirmative, reporting back to base, Interceptor one out."

The two craft then flew off into the eastern sky and back to the base from whence they came.


	7. Chapter 7: New Finds

Chapter 7: New Finds

"Do you think he's alright?"

"I don't know Krys', I mean, the last time he contacted me was right before we entered the atmosphere."

"I know, but he should be just fine, I mean, it's Falco we're talkin' about here. His cocky attitude'll get him through anything just about."

"Yeah, I know, but it's his cocky attitude that worries me. What if he runs into inhabitants of this planet, remember that rural looking area we saw on our way down, what if he landed there?"

"I don't know, lets just hope for the best and atleast enjoy the fact that we're alive and in a nice looking nature setting. See, look at the bright side, we're not being shot at."

"Yet."

"Why do you say yet?"

"Because, we have no idea at all about this planet whatsoever. For example, when I landed on Sauria, I had no idea that I was only going to be able to use a staff to fight off friggin dinosaurs. We just don't know what, if anything, we're up against here, but you are right, the nature scene here is quite nice."

"Yes, I agree, though not quite that of Sauria or Fortuna, but it's still nice."

"Yeah, especi...I mean, do you think we should go and try to find shelter of some sort or just wait here."

"I think we should wait, venturing into a civilized area, especially not knowing anything of this planet or its inhabitants, could be perceived as a threat."

Fox simply nodded at this and the two of them simply stood side by side at the edge of the small pond they had landed their craft beside, forest stretching behind them for many, many miles.

The silence of the situation was broken a few moments later by Krystal.

"Fox."

"Yeah Krys'."

"Earlier, you started to say something and then switched subjects. What did you want to tell me?"

"Oh...I...uhh...I can't remember."

"Oh, okay then...um Fox."

"Yeah."

"Do you hear that noise?"

"Now that you mention it, I do. What do you think it is?"

"I don't know, but I can tell it is getting closer. It is, it is getting closer very rapidly, and maybe we should hide somewhere."

Without a word, Fox and Krystal ran off into the woods, continuing for several hundred meters until they found a suitable area at a fallen trees root ball to stay hidden. They both got down into the hole created by the uprooting of the tree and kept their eyes on the area in which they had landed, seeing a black militaristic looking vehicle roll up beside the pond and arwings roughly one minute later.

**At the pond**

"Slippy, hand me that metallic case from behind you real quick."

Slippy reached into the rear of my SUV and grabbed a fifty caliber rated ammo can and handed it up to me.

I opened it and quickly threw all the magazines out of my tactical vest, placing into the now empty pockets magazines filled with live rounds, no longer rubber. I did the same with the single magazine in my M4 rifle as well as with all the magazines that corresponded to me M9 sidearm.

As I exited the vehicle, I dropped to one knee and scanned the area in a one hundred eighty degree swath, making sure it was clear to move. Upon finding the area clear, I began to jog in a half crouched position over to the arwings to investigate them.

As before, the emergency cargo holds had been emptied and there was no sign of any pilot around.

By now, Slippy had exited my vehicle and had made his way over to where I was standing.

"These are Fox's and Krystal's arwings."

I nodded now knowing who it was that I needed to keep my eyes open for.

As we stood there inspecting the arwings, something caught my attention as I noticed the ever slightest movement in the distance out of my peripherals and instantly snapped to a one kneed squat, weapon aimed in the direction I saw the movement.

Slippy noticed this and asked, "What did you see?"

"I don't know...I'll be right back, I'm goin' to check it out okay."

He nodded, still looking somewhat fearful of me as I got up and began to walk in the direction of the movement, weapon still poised in my hands, ready to be aimed and used against any threat.

"Oh shit, I think it saw us."

"Are you sure about that Fox?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure 'cuz it's walkin' towards our position right now."

"Well, I don't think we really have anything to worry about."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because, Slippy is with him and his motives are not malicious, he is investigating."

"Alright, I trust you on this one because you've got the telepath thing goin' for ya', but how should we handle it, I mean when he arrives over here."

"Uhh, I don't know, you're the one with more experience dealing with alien first encounters, remember."

"Yeah, but you were kind of trapped and all, didn't pose a threat at the time, and you're pretty much the same as me, just blue."

"Well, I mean how did you react to me being blue?"

"I...uhh...I...thought that...uhh..."

Their conversation was interrupted as I stepped up to the edge of the hole they had been hiding in, weapon pointed at them both.

They looked terrified as Slippy had when he first encountered me, but neither drew a weapon.

I, seeing that they were rather too frozen with fear at the moment simply said, "Fox and Krystal of the Starfox team, isn't it?"

Fox's jaw simply dropped and he replied, "Yeah." In a rather weak, scared tone of voice.

"Good, I need you both to come with me immediately, it is not safe here."

I then slung my rifle around my back and reached both of my hands down to give them a paw up out of the hole they had hid in this whole time.

They both, reluctantly, grasped my hands and I helped them on their way out of the hole and then led them back to the location of my vehicle and Slippy.

Upon arriving at my vehicle, I went and placed my M4 in the rear cargo area and laid down both rear seats so as an individual could lay in the back without anyone ever noticing.

I then pulled out two very large camouflaged nets and walked over to the arwings, which had been conveniently landed in an area where a small grove of trees was providing ample cover from an above view and close enough so that one net would stretch over both craft and quickly slung the two nets over the crafts, concealing them from an aerial view until a further arrangement could be met.

I then motioned for all three Starfox team members to come to my vehicle, they all did and I proceeded to brief them on what would happen next.

"Okay then, now that that is taken care of, I have a few questions for you all."

They looked at each other in slight bewilderment and I proceeded to question them.

"Fox, is the rest of your team here on this planet?"

"Umm, I think so, we lost contact with one of our other team mates shortly after we entered the atmosphere though. Why?"

"Because, the vast majority of my race is not as quite so receptive to alien arrivals as I am. In short, if I had not found you before the rest of my race or government had, you would all be dead."

Fox, Krystal, and Slippy all looked stunned at this statement and remained silent afterwards.

"Now, on to the next order of business. I am going to take you all back to live at my home until we can one, figure out a way for Corneria to come pick you guys up or two, I can get my government to allow you to live openly here for an extended period of time. Understand?"

All three individuals shook their heads yes at this and I said, "Good, now, Fox, Krystal and Slippy, you will all need to ride in the rear of my vehicle, lying down so that no one sees you, okay."

They nodded again, looks of fear quite visible on their faces as well as noticeable signs of fatigue and sleep deprivation. They all climbed into the rear of my 4Runner, closed the door they used to enter and I got into the drivers seat, speeding off to go find the rest of the team members.

It seemed as if hours had passed and it was now well into the afternoon. I had been following a small disturbance in my GPS system, which appeared on the screen as a small blurry in a canyon area.

As I drove on, I looked into the back and found Fox, Krystal and Slippy all to be sound asleep and after my long night back at the Airsoft field, I decided that a bit of music should help to stem off any tiredness that I was feeling, so I turned on the radio system in my vehicle and simply let the first song that came on play.

I sat silently, listening to both the song and the hum of my vehicles engine as I, along with my three passengers, continued on the old back road, leaving the decommissioned military base.

As I kept on driving forward, I noticed that we were nearing the destination of the small blur on my GPS system and focused my attention on any signs of a recently crashed aircraft.

I found the signs I was looking for, one minute later, in a ravine type area roughly thirty feet down from the side of the roadway in this mountainous region and to my dismay, it was a straight drop down to the crash site. So, being the partially adventurous type that I am, I decided to rappel down to the crash site to see if the pilot was any where down there to be seen, though I would have to employ some help from one of the three sleepy heads in the cargo area of my vehicle. Knowing this, I pulled my vehicle as close to the edge of the ravine as I could, engaged the emergency parking brake, got out, and rolled down the rear window, getting a twelve foot length of rope out of one of the side cargo manifolds and inadvertently waking a certain blue vixen in the process, who seemed rather concerned as per what I was planning to do with the rope.

"Hey."

I received no response from her.

"I...uhh, I kind of need your help real quick, would you mind at all?"

She hesitantly agreed and climbed out of the rear window as I proceeded to tie myself into a makeshift Swiss seat rappel harness with the length of rope. After which, I took the time to formally introduce myself to her.

"I don't think we got a chance to formally greet so, well, my name is John...John Carter and you're Krystal...McCloud?"

She smiled a bit and shook her head no, saying, "No, I get that a lot though, but it is nice to meet you Mr. Carter. Um, what exactly did you need my help with out here?"

"Well, I believe I have found another one of your team members' crash sites, but I have to be lowered to it and I needed someone to operate the winch system on the front of my vehicle here so, if someone is down there, I can bring them back up. Sound good to you?"

"Yeah, but I don't know what winch system is. Is it hard to operate?"

"No, not at all. After I get clamped into the hook, its a simple push of a button to lower me down and then the same to bring me back up, here, I'll show you."

I led her to the front of the vehicle and showed her the small control box for the winch, explaining the up and down arrows.

"Alright and when I yank on the cable like this and you here me yell up, just start to raise me, or hopefully us, back up to the top with the up arrow. You good with that?"

She nodded and said, as I attached the cable hook to my harness, "You know, I could tell you weren't malicious at all from when you first met Fox and I in the woods earlier today. Fox says that not everyone can deal with Slippy one on one without wanting to kick something after a while for too long, so, I just wanted to say thanks."

"Well, don't thank me just yet, this day aint over until the sun goes down."

And with that, I began my descent down the short cliff face, reaching the bottom after only about ten seconds and quickly detaching from the cable line and drawing my pistol.

I approached the crash site, at least what was left of it, and determined that someone had found this craft before it ever landed and done quite a number, as nearly nothing was left of it other than strewn shrapnel and scorches, though a long gulley had been cut from the craft skidding to a stop. It had landed before it exploded.

This realization led me to believe that the pilot was still alive and possibly injured, meaning that he would not have made it very far from this area...I was right.

As I inspected the craft, a sudden flash from my right caught my attention and I turned to see a ball of plasma traveling towards me. I dove and rolled out of the way, the super heated ball barely missing my body and quickly recovered to my feet, seeing the individual that had fired the shot. I returned a round, connecting with his weapon and effectively disarming him entirely and ran over to the downed pilot, a tall falcon, blue plumage covering his entire body, with small tufts of feathers sticking up from the top of his head. Yet, despite all his brilliant feathering, he looked horrible. His left leg was indefinitely broke and there were many cuts all over his body, several of them rather deep, accompanied by, even through the dark shaded feathers, bruises of all sizes. A noticeably sized lump had formed on his forehead as well.

As I loomed over him, I holstered my weapon and knelt down beside him saying, "My name is John Carter, I'm here to help you."

He said nothing and simply drifted into a state of unconsciousness. I worked feverishly to splint up his leg the best I could with the limited gear I had on me and heaved him up onto my shoulders, carrying him in a fireman's carry style back over to the winch line and hooked back into it, settling the large falcon in my lap so as to not drop him back down the ravine and gave Krystal the okay to lift us out. Shortly after, the winch began to move us up the rocky face, at a noticeably slower pace than before, but nevertheless, we were going up.

Thirty seconds later, we reached the top and I worked my way up, stepping left then right till I was all the way onto level ground. Krystal looked at her comrade in disbelief and shock at his condition and helped me to carry him over to the rear of the vehicle, placing him in carefully and not waking either of the original two members already in there.

I then removed my harness and placed into the back and secured the winch line at the front of the vehicle. Krystal, now at a loss for room in the rear cargo hold, took up the passenger seat up front and I backed the large SUV away from the ravines edge and drove on, towards my home.


	8. Chapter 8: Terra

Chapter 8: Terra

"Sir, multiple unidentified objects just registered on probe twos scan. Awaiting probe one and three to return...Same, calculating quantity of objects. Four large masses, roughly sixteen kilometers long by seven wide and five tall, in an elliptic shape."

"Hmm, perhaps they are a group of meteors that made it into subspace. It has happened before, plus I've never seen formation that size or with that much precision flight in subspace. Record these findings for review by the CASA."

"Yes sir, downloading to air force database now...wait, the objects, they just vanished from the probe scanners. They've exited subspace. Target objects are four hundred thousand kilometers on bearing three four three from this position. Relative position to axial radii of system is twelve degrees/ fourteen hundred kilometers by positive thirty thousand kilometers. Scanning now...Scans complete. This can't be right, these show that the four masses are made up of smaller units, some quite larger than the others."

"That is quite strange. What do you think..."

Both the ensign and the resident commander of outpost Terra had no chance to finish their conversation, as it was interrupted by a lieutenant yelling across the room to the resident commander, "Sir, multiple energy signatures massing at the location of the first group of objects to exit subspace, should I begin counter attack measures?"

"Yes, bring up the shield system and I want that MAC charged fully, heavy round loaded."

The commander ran over to his control station and got on the intercom system, yelling over it to everyone aboard the outpost, "Battle stations, all hands to combat ready sectors. Scramble fighter squadrons husky and bulldog; get those birds in the air ASAP. I repeat, this is not a drill, fighter squadron's husky and bulldog report to hangar bay and get in the air, all crew members, prepare for possible boarding parties."

The commander then stood back up and ran over to another console and furiously typed in code after code on the keyboard until the familiar face of General Pepper appeared on the screen in front of him.

The commander of Terra, anxed at the current situation, did not even give the General time to speak as he quickly said, "Outpost Terra, unidentified craft, hostile, need fleet backup here as quickly as possible."

The transmission ended and the commander looked out the main view port of the outposts' bridge and saw hundreds of tiny craft exiting the station and flying out into space. He also saw several glowing red specks against the black of the void that seemed to be growing closer by the second.

"Shields up commander, MAC at forty percent charge."

The commander turned about and, to his immediate dismay, saw that the red specks were far closer than before and were bearing down on the stations position at am astonishingly rate.

"Sir, MAC at fifty percent."

He gripped the edge of his console.

"Sixty percent."

Sweat dripped through the gray fur on his face and neck.

"Seventy five, reactor one hundred twenty percent capacity."

His eyes steadied on one of the craft under his command. He watched as it fired volleys of directed plasma into the void of space and then exploded as a stream of plasma poured back into its hull.

A voice blared over the intercom of the entire station, "Unidentified targets engaged. We have contact....I say again, Contact...Unidentified units hostile."

"Sir, MAC is at ninety percent charge."

The commander fidgeted in his standing position, the atmosphere on the bridge so thick with uncertain fear, one could cut it with a knife. Silence was the only companion of those on the bridge, only the machines that beeped and clicked away were oblivious to the situation.

"Ninety five percent."

The MAC never got to fully charge. The commander watched in horror, past the sight of the craft he commanded out locked in fierce dogfights against the black of space, as the specks of red homed in, pierced through the shields and struck the lower decks of the station, causing for the entire outpost to rock back from the shock of the violent decompression and the strike of the massive plasma torpedoes.

The commander was slammed against the console, his head cracking on the metal components. He would not have to live through the horrors that awaited the rest of the outpost.

One hour later, the naval fleet arrived and found that all that remained were floating droplets of cooled alloy and titanium from the hull of the outpost. Many scorched, bent, and broken hulls of single craft floated about among the wreckage. Only three soldiers survived the fight, the commander of both squadrons and his wingmates.


	9. Chapter 9: Revealing Finds

Chapter 9: Revealing Finds

**Roughly 0500 hrs Carter Residence**

_"Geez, I've been up for a long time. I gotta take a break from this. You'll be okay won't you, sir? What am I thinking, he'll be absolutely fine right here. I just hope he doesn't wake up or anything."_

I got up from my post beside the bed I had sat at for most of the night and walked through the small corridor to the landing that led to both my homes bonus bedroom and the staircase to the main floor. I stopped for a moment outside the bonus room doorway and looked in, seeing a certain amphibian sound asleep on the bed top.

I then walked down the stairs, rather quietly, and made my way to the kitchen, hunger the prevailing thought on my mind.

I stepped into the kitchen and flipped on the switch to the light, the room instantly bathed in golden luminescence as I moved towards the refrigerator and opened the door to it, looking over the many types of food within the drawers and door shelves.

Finding nothing in the fridge, I moved to the pantry and began looking through it.

I finally found a box of granola bars that had not been opened up yet and settled for one of them. I quietly opened the box up and looked through its contents quickly, finding a cinnamon apple flavored bar and pulling it out.

I put the box away and opened up the packaging around the granola bar, taking a small bite of it after I had removed the wrapper enough.

I sat there for several minutes; slowly eating the granola bar and watching dim light fill the outside world as the sun rose in the distance.

I finished eating and got up from my seat, stretching slightly and popping my back at the same time.

I walked over to the cabinet beside the sink and opened it, placing the wrapper that had been on the granola bar in the trash can within the cabinet.

Wondering what time it was, I glanced at my watch; 0536 hrs, the face read. I was shocked at how much time had passed, me just sitting at the table.

Finding nothing more to do in the kitchen, I moved into the living room and flipped on the TV, turning the volume down a great degree so that only I could hear it, not wanting to disturb any of the sleeping anthro's in my household.

The channel of choice was Discovery. The nature series, Planet Earth was showing and I simply sat back on my couch, watching the various fish swim past the camera lens and wondering all the while how the camera man must have felt, being so close to all of it that he could reach out and touch it.

That showing ended and, to my dismay, a thirty minute long commercial promo came on, likely followed by another of the same type.

I flipped off the television and got back up, quietly walking back into the kitchen and putting on a pot of coffee for later.

Having finished this small task, I walked back into the living room and laid down on the large couch, slowly drifting off to sleep, my mind filled with deep thought.

**Roughly one hour later**

I stirred slightly, thinking I had heard something.

The same noise, only closer.

I opened my eyes and slightly lifted my head to see a blue vulpine, trying to, tip toe past where I slept. She simply stood there, the expression on her face showing that she was quite surprised I had heard her.

"Oh… morning Krystal."

I let my head fall back onto the small throw pillow that it had been resting on for the past hour, simply keeping my eyes on Krystal as she stood where she was when I awoke.

"Uhh, umm, good morning Mr. Carter. I didn't mean to wake you, I'm sorry if you were disturbed at all."

I simply waved my hand at her apology, saying, "I'd rather be woken up like that than in some of the ways that I have been." Recalling a moment in the not too distant past few days.

She smiled a bit, a good sign for me; I was making progress with an alien race.

"Mr. Carter..."

I cut her off, saying, "Please, just call me John, I feel old when people call me Mr. Carter."

She smiled a bit again and said, "Okay… John, I just wanted to say thanks for taking us all in. I hope we're not being a burden to you."

I shook my head no and said, "Nah, you guys are easy to take care of, so far. I have a friend that will be coming over today, I hope, and he'll be able to help me more with your fellow team mates' injury."

She nodded and began to say, "Umm, I was just wondering, because it is what awoke me. What smells so good?"

I cocked my head a little to the side and said, in a bit of a quizzical tone, "Uhh, I uhh… Oh, I put a pot of coffee on earlier."

She looked at me somewhat quizzically and said, "Coffee?"

"Yeah, umm… you don't know what coffee is?"

She shook her head no some what timidly and I exclaimed, "Well dang… there's a first time for everything and you are gonna love coffee… I hope."

She smiled a bit as I did as well at my own small joke and I pushed myself up off the couch.

As I walked into the kitchen, the blue furred vixen followed suit and, after fully making it into the kitchen, I reached up into the cabinet and pulled out two coffee mugs, placing both, side by side, on the counter top and getting two spoons out of the drawer as well.

Grabbing the coffee pot by the handle, I poured the black liquid into both mugs, filling each roughly two thirds of the way and set the glass vessel back onto the hot plate attached to the coffee maker.

After doing this small task, I walked over to the fridge and opened it, pulling a plastic bottle from the door shelves and closing the fridge back, walked over to the place in which I had poured the coffee originally.

Picking up a mug, I handed it to Krystal and said, "Okay… this is just to see how you like it and all. I think it has cooled enough to sip, so tell me if it tastes too bitter."

She nodded and brought the mug up to her lips, taking an ever so slight sip and, by the look on her face, was not enjoying the current taste.

"Too bitter isn't it?"

She nodded and I said, "I figured it might be, so now, I'm gonna add some creamer to it. Don't ask me what it does besides make it taste better, cuz I don't know."

She chuckled slightly as I poured a slight bit of the 'coffee improving liquid' and stirred it, handing the mug back to her. I had already done the same with mine and had begun to slowly sip it as she, again, brought the mug up to her lips and, this time, drank the warm beverage with a much more satisfied look about her face.

"So, I take it that you like it better now huh?"

She nodded and exclaimed, "That is, perhaps, the most amazing refreshment I've had in my life."

I nodded and said, "Thought you'd like it."

As she continued to enjoy the aroma and taste of the hot liquid, I motioned for her to come sit down with me. She obliged.

Walking over to the breakfast table, we each pulled out our own seat and sat upon them.

After we had gotten situated in our seats, Krystal was the first to speak.

"So John, do you mind if I ask a few questions of you?"

"Nope." Was my only response as I settled back into my seat.

She nodded and continued on.

"First off, I was wondering, if I may say, what exactly are you?"

I chuckled slightly and said, "Well, my race calls ourselves humans."

"Okay, so you are a human being, I presume is what you would say?"

I simply nodded.

"Alright, so how exactly did you come to speak Lylatian?"

I looked at her quizzically for a moment and said, "Lylati… Oh, you mean English, right?"

This time she returned the quizzical look and said, "I'm not sure. What is English?"

"Oh, I get it now. Where you're from, there is one basic language that most everyone knows, right?"

She nodded and I took that as my cue to continue.

"Okay, well, here on planet earth, humans have many different languages. English is, however, the most widespread. Does that explain it a little better?"

She nodded and then added, "Yeah, that's how it is in the Lylat system. There is one main, widespread language that most everyone knows and then there are less used languages indigenous to certain planets."

I nodded and waited for her next question.

"Earlier, yesterday, when you found us all, you said that the current would have to be convinced to let us live here openly. Have humans not had contact with outside races in the past?"

I nodded my head and said, "Yeah, its just that, well, the old government kept these contacts very closely hidden from the public eye, as they were fearful of initiating a panic in the citizens. So, technically, no, the human race has not had contact with alien races of any type and, plus, ever since the Fall, the government has been run by thugs, gangsters, and pirates. Pretty much by whoever had the firepower to overtake a weaker government."

She looked at me quizzically again and said, "The Fall? What was that?"

I nodded and a grim expression spread over my face as I began the explanation of the horrible happening known as the Fall.

"About two years ago, an individual came down with an odd strain of a cold. Doctors tried and tried all they could to rid the individual of the sickness, but to no avail. The man spent two full months in a hospital sick as could be and, all of the sudden, was better, as if overnight. The hospital allowed him to return home and, within twelve hours, he had died of complete organ failure. His entire body shut down."

Krystal sat there, wide eyed at the fate of the poor individual to contract this illness. I continued.

"One day later, every doctor and nurse that had worked to defeat the illness in the individual contracted the same odd disease and were dead within a week. It then had spread throughout the hospital and the building was quarantined. Everyone inside died, those that had performed the quarantine contracted the illness and it began to spread throughout the city of Beijing like wildfire. People were dying left and right, and from what type of disease, no one knew. It seemed almost alien in itself and, before long, it had spread across an entire continent and the population was reduced by enormous numbers. Businessmen traveling from that continent to others brought the disease with them and it began to take hold in other nations, killing all it infected. The global population dropped by enormous numbers. People had died in the billions by the time the ordeal had ended."

Krystals' jaw had dropped open slightly at hearing my explanation, yet, I continued on with it.

"However, there was hope. The disease only affected adults aged roughly nineteen years and up as well as very young children such as infants. The entire human race was not wiped out, only two thirds of it. So, we began to rebuild. The ravaging of the disease was not the Fall, it was what happened afterwards. Mass riots filled the streets, gunfights were widespread and many, violence rose to unprecedented levels as good natured people tried to restore order and those that despised order fought back. I had a group of friends at the time who I still have today who, along with myself, organized a revolution against the thugs and pirates of the nation and gained a mass following. Our first mission was to raid a dilapidated military base and acquire weapons, which we did, however, we did not have our mass following at the time. It was only the few close friends of mine and myself. We successfully acquired many military vehicles and weapons and brought them all back here, to my home. Afterwards, we organized ourselves into a team with a recognizable name. We called ourselves Blackfox and the name stuck. That's my teams' story."

The look of shock had not quite left her face yet and she shook her head slightly, seeming to not want to believe it.

She looked up at me from the table top and said, "I…I can't believe it. It's…"

She was cut off by the sound of the doorbell resounding through the house.

"Excuse me for a moment while I answer the door."

She nodded, still looking somewhat distraught at what she had just heard. I had no idea, however, how much so she really was.

As I looked at the frosted glass decoration on the door, I noticed the familiar silhouette of my long time best friend, Ben Baker.

Opening the door, I noticed that the front of him was coated in mud, again.

I remembered that look of him from the last training mission we had done and said, "Please tell me you didn't do it again…please."

He just looked at me with a bit of a smirk on his face and said, "What? The fight went into the morning hours and we were losing people fast. I got tired of sitting in the room and picking off targets…"

I cut him off before he could finish and said, "I know, I know… you went into 'Baker Mode' and pretty much killed everything yourself."

His smirk grew much larger as he said, "Precisely."

I shook my head slightly and looked down at the floor, saying, "The purpose of these training missions is to build an army back up, not have you be the army."

He smirked again in a cocky sort of fashion and said, "So what'd ya want me over for? Morning tea?"

He chuckled slightly at his own joke and I said, "Nope, actually I need your help with something."

He stopped his self amusement and asked, "What is this something you speak of?"

I looked him dead in the face and said, "You remember when that refugee broke her leg and it took you, me, and Jess to fix it?"

"Yeah."

"Well, now it's just you and me working on a broke leg."

"Why you say that, I coulda brought Jess with me."

"I know you can keep a secret, that's why."

He looked at me, a very confused expression spreading across his face.

"Uhh… John, you're not, ya know… ya didn't flip sides on me did ya?"

"What in the… no you idiot. Okay, I'll explain a little further, but you're going to have to see what I'm talking about to believe me…" I took a deep breath and began to explain "…there is an alien upstairs, in my room with a broken leg, although with the same, _basic_, human anatomy, one in the kitchen area, one in the guest bedroom, and another in the hall guest bedroom."

His expression of confusion quickly became more intense. I, however, only worsened it furthermore.

"They are the Starfox team members."

He simply stood there, his jaw dropped and body completely motionless.


	10. Chapter 10: My Life

Chapter 10:

"Holy... holy shit. You... were... not... kidding... when you... said it... was the... fucking... Starfox team." Ben managed to say in between deep breaths as he stood on the outside of the still wide open front door and Krystal stood beside me on the inside.

All I could do was simply look at Krystal and then back to him and nod, saying, "Yeah, I guess this time I wasn't fuckin' with your mind... was I?"

His head slowly moved to the left and then to the right a few times. His eyes remaining fixated on Krystal as she simply stood there in her slightly torn and tattered flight suit. Her expressionless face not changing much from earlier at hearing what I told her.

Breaking the silence, I said, while clapping my hands together and sliding them against one another, "Well, now that you two are acquainted, I need your help with a certain broken legged individual upstairs." Returning my attention back to Ben.

All he did was nod.

"Good, then follow me please."

I turned about and began to walk into the depths of my house, making a left turn to head up the stairs. At the top of the stairway, I went directly into my room and walked over to the bedside, standing beside it and facing the two individuals who had followed me up the stairs.

"Alright Baker, here's the issue. His leg is fractured very badly in two places and is on the verge of breaking in both of those spots and here, halfway up his quad, he has a very clean break, which has been stabilized by the splint I applied. We simply need to, unfortunately, remove the splint, the pants, and cast the leg... properly, without inflicting more damage. Easy enough?"

At that point, Baker simply sat down in my office chair and looked at the figure lying on the beds' surface.

After a few moments he looked up at me and said, "You do realize how awkward this is... right?"

I nodded and replied, "If it weren't awkward, then I wouldn't have asked my partner in crime to help. Remember what you always say, either completely productive..."

"...or entirely destructive, I know, I know. It's just that, I don't know. Okay, well, here goes nothin'."

Standing back up, he walked over beside me and began to unwrap the lower part of the splint as I worked on the upper half.

Once it was completely unwrapped, I motioned for him to work on removing the boot from the falcons' left foot while I carefully cut a slit along the seam of the left pants leg from the hip to the bottom hem and opened it up, by which time, Ben had successfully, yet very carefully, removed the large flight boot and set it aside.

The whole ordeal had already taken an hour to work through, and it was only to get more difficult.

Getting a more efficient leg splint tool from the medical kit of sorts set up in the room, I applied it to the injured individuals' leg and had Ben hold it in place while I retrieved the required pre-wrap and fiberglass casting tape.

Starting at the top of the leg, near the upper thigh area, I began to gingerly take the pre-wrap over and under the leg, receiving help from Krystal during the process as she would feed it back to me with her smaller hands from underneath the injured leg.

Thirty minutes later, I tied off the pre-wrap at the bottom of the leg and picked up the roll of casting tape, beginning the process all over again with the new material.

Five rolls of casting tape and nearly an hour and a half later, we had finished, by which time Slippy had joined in at helping us patch up his friend and comrade.

Having finished the task, all of us let out a contented breath that the job was done.

"Aright then... with that being done, I'm going to go make some much deserved breakfast."

Ben nodded his head slightly at this, though his sight never completely left Krystal and Slippy. He didn't bother so much with keeping a watchful eye on Falco though, being that he was disabled at the moment.

Turning to leave the room, the three others followed me down the stairs to the foyer area of my home.

Stepping through the foyer, I entered the kitchen as the trio that followed me turned to enter the living room area.

Upon entering the kitchen, I was greeted by a one, Fox McCloud, who seemed rather unnerved to see me.

"Oh... good morning Mr. McCloud, I wasn't expecting you to be up already."

He simply just continued to look at me, somewhat dumbstruck. Seeing this, I reached out my hand and said, "I don't believe I properly introduced myself earlier on so I'll try again... Good morning, my name is John Carter and you are?"

Playing along, he reached with his right paw and returned the gesture, replying, "Fox McCloud."

I nodded and simply turned away, continuing on with what I had originally come into the kitchen for... to make breakfast.

However, I did not know what everyone would want to eat, or even be willing to eat. So, instead of picking one thing, I opted to make a full spread; pancakes, sausage, eggs, grits, bacon, fruits, and biscuits as well as every juice suitable for breakfast possible.

As I began to cook, I called Ben into the kitchen and said, "Hey, uh, go ahead and call up the rest of the team for me. Let's get them clued in on the situation."

He nodded and walked out of the room, however, Fox had still been standing on the other side of the kitchen... sort of looking around for something from where he stood.

I saw this out of my peripheral vision and turned slightly to see him more, asking, "Is there anything I can help you with Mr. McCloud?"

His sight turned to me and he replied, "Uhh, well, first off, I wanted to say thanks for bringing us into your home so acceptingly..."

I nodded and he continued on with what he was saying, "... and, earlier this morning, I awoke to something that smelt really good, but when I came in here earlier, I couldn't find what it was."

I thought about it for a moment and then said, "Oh, you probably smelt the coffee I made earlier."

He gave me the same quizzical look that Krystal had earlier.

"Coffee?" he said curiously.

I nodded and replied, "Yeah, I'll go ahead and make some more for breakfast."

He nodded and turned to exit the kitchen, walking out the entryway and turning right to go to the living room with everyone else.

Returning my attention to the duties involved in making breakfast, I continued on with the task.

Roughly thirty minutes later, I announced that breakfast was ready carried it all over to the table, setting the generous portions out for the eagerly waiting mouths.

Ben had also returned, announcing that the rest of my team was on their way over for breakfast and then... it happened.

I had been getting incredibly tired of this happening on a day to day basis, but it seemed to be an inevitable way of life, daily ripping me out of enjoyable fantasies and back into the harsh reality of life with such abruptness that it always makes me jump.

It was my fourth class of the day and I had been quite tired, so I simply dozed off, but soon slipped into the fantastical world of dreams, staying there for the entire class period. We weren't learning anything; it was a week after the AP exam. We had been watching movies and just relaxing now that there was no new material to learn... but everyday, that... thing, found it necessary to destroy my dreams.

Being awoken by it, I jumped, thinking to myself, _"That damn school bell.... why, why must the school have a bell that sounds so annoying?"_

Getting up with the rest of my classmates, we all exited the room and made are way down the hall along with all the rest of the teeming masses at the high school I attended.

Descending the flight of stairs and making my way down the hall, I exited the building, walking into the parking lot up to my vehicle. Putting the key in the slot, I turned it clockwise a way and listened to the resounding click of the doors unlocking.

Climbing into the cab, I placed the key into the ignition slot, turned it, and reveled in the mighty hum of the engine as it roared to life.

But... no matter how much I enjoyed all these simple things of life; it was still just another day.

Wake up, go to school, sports practice in the afternoon, then home to engage in the repeating of the process over and over again until the painfully distant seeming summer vacation arrived.

This is my life...


	11. Chapter 11: Reflection

Chapter 11

: // Summer Journal Entry One

_"Time passes without remorse."_ _-Unknown_

I had heard that quote many years ago and didn't quite understand it at the young age I had reached... now I do.

It has been one day since our summer break began and, already, it seems to be going by all too quickly, or maybe it was the final realization that college was just around the corner and my friends would not be attending it with me, as they had been accepted elsewhere.

I am definitely going to try and make the most of this summer, it being my last to do so.

Signed,

_John Carter_


	12. Chapter 12: Day Two

Chapter 12

: // Summer Journal Entry Two

It is day two into my, so far, rather boring summer vacation.

Hoping for a change of pace. My parents always say, "Be careful what you wish for." Well, at this point, I just want something out of the ordinary to happen... just anything at all. Household chores are not enough to sustain one through the entire summer.

Ben invited me over to play Airsoft two days from now... definitely going to. That should definitely be a difference from the ordinary humdrum of my life here.

Signed,

_John Carter_


	13. Chapter 13: The Beginning

Chapter 13: The Beginning

I took Bens offer up and went to play Airsoft with him and a bunch of other friends for a day in an area of town we all called the wasteland. It wasn't much, nothing more than a glorified piece of cleared land hosting tall savannah type grasses.

So there I was, another week later and nothing to show for it. Again, household chores were boring to say the least.

It had taken me a short while, but I managed to set myself to thinking and pondering. I would sit for hours at night under the dark velvet sky and simply look up at its massiveness. My mind wandering to all sorts of locations and trains of thought.

Two nights ago, however, I could not shake this feeling. It stabbed at my mind incessantly and I found nothing to ease it. It seemed almost as if my conscience was warning me of something, but what, I do not know.

Anyways, off to bed now.

//: End journal log /

I awoke the next morning and slowly rolled out of bed and left my room, walking down the stairs clad in nothing except my pair of gray sweatpants I had slept in the night before.

Making my way to the kitchen, I, while still half asleep, hit the power button on the radio and turned it on, some sort of national broadcast taking precedence over whatever was normally playing. Its message filled with static and garbled words.

Thinking nothing of it, I simply turned the radio off and went about my normal morning routine.

Whilst simply working through my morning, my phone began to ring.

Picking it up, I noticed Ben's half terrified sounding voice on the other line which instantly snapped me to an incredibly alert level.

I listened to his half whispering voice on the other line.

"John, something is wrong. Something is here… illing people or anything that moves."

"What are you talking about Ben?!"

"… idn't get that… say?"

As I was about to answer, but was halted as everything instantly got drowned out from the sound of something tearing through the air as it fell filled my ears, a massive boom accompanied the end of the rushing sound as pictures and such fell from my walls.

Nearly shell shocked, I looked up from the floor I had fallen onto and out the completely shattered window onto the street outside.

A large C-130 transport plane had crashed into the houses and land just across the road separating my home from the others.

I quickly jumped up leaving the phone on the floor and Ben still on the other line, his frantic voice yelling, "John, what the… that?! Get… out of there…"

I already was.

I had started at a dead sprint towards my stairs taking them in bounds of four or five at a time and made my way back to my room as quickly as possible. I ran into my room and stripped off the sweatpants I had on and donned my ACU pants, quickly placing the shirt and blouse on as well. The socks and boots followed suit.

I'm not sure if it was the adrenaline rush, but I believe I got dressed in less than a minute.

To my luck, the drop leg holster was already on the pants and attached to belt, compliments of me being too lazy to take it off after the Airsoft competition. I quickly tossed the Airsoft pistol out of the holster onto the floor as well as its magazines and extra CO2 cylinders.

Grabbing my school backpack, I flipped it over and dumped everything out of it onto the floor and ran with the empty pack to the bonus room next to mine.

Being me, I always like to plan for the worst, so I grabbed my families' bulk box of shotgun ammo, all five hundred rounds of it. All the various small boxes of twelve twenty gauge as well as twenty two caliber rounds that lay all over the general area and all of the nine millimeter ammunition I had and placed it into my pack. Next came the actual weapons. I grabbed the hard case holding the nine millimeter pistol and extra magazine and opened it, shoving the pistol and extra mag into the drop leg holster I wore.

The rifle and two shotguns came next, these being wrapped in towels to keep them safe for the past few years, I quickly laid them on the floor and removed the towels, taking only a few moments to put my backpack on before picking up the long weapons and making my way downstairs to my vehicle in the garage.

By this time, I was at three minutes.

I ran into the garage, threw the twenty two caliber rifle and the twenty gauge shotgun into the backseat, keeping the twelve gauge shotgun in hand and ready.

Running out of the very large open garage door, I sprinted towards the crash site, the shotgun crossing back and forth across the front of my body as my arms moved to keep up momentum.

I had made it halfway across the road and out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something odd… something entirely out of place.

I turned my head to look and saw a horrific site.

A large creature, having to be standing at least three meters tall and resting on six segmented type legs was tearing into a neighbors' dog, or, at least what was left of it.

Seeing this only spurred me to run on faster. I reached the cockpit window and noticed that the pilot inside looked as if he were dead, but his co-pilot seemed to be in a slightly better state.

I worked quickly, flames hungrily lapping at the wings holding the fuel for the massive aircraft.

Slamming the butt of the weapon against the glass did nothing to even slightly crack it, so I opted for the harsher, dirtier way in.

I stepped back and raised the shotgun up to the edge of the glass and fired. The deer hunting grade buckshot smashing through the aluminum and glass as if it were nothing. I repeated the process of beating the glass with butt of the shotgun and it finally gave.

I used the barrel of the weapon to clear away any of the jagged glass from the edges and hopped into the cockpit, the co-pilot looking up at me with a very astonished and dazed look on his face.

As he looked at me, he shook his head no and weakly pointed to the MP5-K sub machine gun on the floor beside his seat. I looked back up at him and just noticed the weak flow of blood trickling from his neck. His head now hanging low as he sat in his seat.

I quickly grabbed his, as well as the pilots', sub machine guns and extra ammo they had and slung them over my shoulders, making my way through the back of the craft, the temperature steadily rising as I made my way towards the rear of the craft.

**Cornerian Controlled Space: In Orbit about Planet Aquas; 2239 hrs (UT)**

"Hey, yo Fox… what we gonna do today?" Falcos voice was nearly driving the young vulpine captain mad. He was used to getting annoyed at hearing a certain frog's voice, but not today. Today, Slippy hadn't said more than ten words, Falco on the other hand… well he had picked today to force everyone else aboard his nonstop complain train.

"Falco, I've told you before and I'll tell you again… We are waiting for the General to give us orders." Fox made sure he drew that last part out in a long, slow, slightly slurred tone as if to add in a bit of a sarcastic edge to the comment.

The two had been the only ones on the bridge of the cruiser they called home now for the past hour, Falco not taking his gaze off the planet below. He would even press his face and body against the glass as if to get only that much closer to the beautiful blue orb below them all.

"What are you in such a hurry to get down to the planet for anyways? Katt waitin' for ya?"

Falco just looked back at Fox from where he stood and left the bridge quietly with, surprisingly, no rebuttal or argument of any type.

Fox looked over his shoulder and watched as Falco left, his face filling with wonder at his friends' reaction to what, at least he thought, was a simple joke.

Moments later, the massive holo-screen in the middle of the room sparked to life and the very familiar face of a one, General Pepper, resided in it.

"Fox, it's good to see you again."

"And you to General. What is it you need my team to do today?"

"Well, then, I suppose that is why I called now isn't it. Your teams' special abilities are needed to escort a team of researchers and scientists to a far out system way beyond the fringe of our controlled space area. Our astronomers have discovered several planets that may, possibly, be able to harbor life. It would be your teams' duty to escort and protect these researchers. Your fee will be accredited to your account immediately. It is ten percent higher than your normal fee."

Fox nodded in understanding and asked, "So, when do we start?"

The General chuckled slightly and said, "I knew you would be ready to accept this mission. Immediately, if possible. The fleet is ready to move and is currently in holding orbit about Corneria. Link up with them before you make the jump at these coordinates I am sending to you now. Good luck and God speed. Pepper out."

With that ending of the transmission, Fox jumped out of his commanders' chair and ran to tell the rest of the team about their new venture, shouting to ROB as he left, "ROB, plot a course for the coordinates Pepper sent us and contact the fleet. We're heading out."

The robot simply gave its monotonous and repetitive reply it always gave. "Affirmative."

**Planet Earth; 1124 hrs (EST Canada & US)**

I sprinted as fast as I could possibly go, faring to slow down at all to look behind me.

I had feared this and my fears were held true. I suppose Murphy didn't think I deserved a break on this day.

The fuel in the planes' wings had reached its flashpoint temperature and was, thankfully, being held back from exploding by the excellently reinforced and engineered fuel tanks in the wings. However, the tell tale creaking and groaning of ever expanding metals told me to get my ass out of that plane.

Making a run for it, I noticed that the strange… it, had disappeared from sight. The only evidence of it being there was the large blood stain from the, what once was, canine body.

I ran on, being suddenly thrown flat onto my stomach by a violent explosion and heat wave from behind me.

Getting back up, I stumbled the rest of the way to my home and garage, getting into the black SUV within its hold.

I managed to climb into the drivers section of the cab with my still rattled mind and turn the vehicle on. I mentally thanked myself over and over that I had recently gotten newer upgrades for said vehicle. Better lift and new hybrid all terrain tires should help a bit, seeing as how most of the road had been demolished by the planes' left wing in the crash.

The shotgun was already thrown into the back seat and I quickly un-slung the two sub machine guns from my body and threw on into the passenger seat, the other finding a resting place in my lap.

I pulled out of the garage and drove straight through the front yard and onto the bit of road left, making my way down it, halfway on the road and halfway in yards.

I picked up speed and continued through the wrecked neighborhood. From the looks of it, most everyone had left in a hurry, but being me, I managed to notice the smallest, most obscure detail in the fray; there were shell casings trailing into a house that seemed to have had its side door smashed in.

I pulled the vehicle up into the yard and stopped it, getting out and jogging over to the open doorway, the small smg still in my grasp.

I stepped in slightly and yelled, "Anyone here… this is John Carter, if you're in here, do not shoot."

I moved further into the house and, as I turned a corner, was greeted by the muzzle of an M4 carbine rifle, the young man behind it shaking slightly.

I put my right hand up and said, "Hey, relax a bit man. What happened here?"

He slowly lowered his rifle down and replied, "I am Private First Class Michael Jennings. My National Guard detachment was sent here to evacuate all the local civilian personnel. We had been at it all morning until we came under attack from these… things. They were massive and cut through our defenses like they were nothing. There were only four or five of them and we managed to bring three down for sure. The evacuation happened so fast after that that I didn't manage to get back with my unit…"

At this point he had fallen onto his rear and was leaning against a wall across from me. To be honest, he looked like he had witnessed hell and then went through it.

"… my buddy went MIA after about five or six minutes of fighting. I found his boot after the fire fight. His foot was still in it." At saying this, he seemed as if he was about to gag and vomit, but he held his composure together.

He looked up at me and said, "We have to get out of here."

I nodded and reached my hand out, helping him back up onto his feet.

He stood up in front of me and nodded, myself turning about and heading out of the house, Jennings following closely behind.

We made our way outside and managed to take, maybe, three steps before the large creature I had seen earlier came tumbling out of the woods.

It looked at both of us and let out a massive screeching call that caused us to both wince. It began to charge at us and, out of instinct, fear, or whatever one wished to call it, we raised our weapons and began firing at the beast, our rounds doing little damage to the massively large frame.

We sidestepped and backpedaled towards my still running SUV and managed to reach, Michael climbing into the passengers' seat while I literally dove into the drivers' seat. I slammed the vehicle into gear and spun around, driving at the beast full speed and head on.

It never even had time to react.

The heavy duty brush guard on the front of the three ton vehicle tore into the alien creatures' frame as easily as anything and quickly dismembered four of the six legs holding the thing up. Its form falling onto the top and then rolling off of the side of my vehicle.

I stopped the black four runner and put it in park, climbing out and examining the carnage.

From the looks of it, the large creature was comprised of an organic makeup definitely not relative to earth. It bore a heavy looking exoskeleton and four large beady black eyes above its large maw which came down in the form of two large mandibles.

Pulling out the nine millimeter pistol at my side, I took aim and fired a round into each of its four eyes, this action seeming to immediately stop its movements and struggle to regain an upright position.

Walking back to my vehicle, I looked at Michael and said, "I'll take you back to your base, but I need to get a friend first."


	14. Chapter 14: Time

Chapter 14:

When I was younger, I heard a rather famous quote once and it went, _"It's not the fall that gets ya… It's the sudden stop at the bottom."_

Today, I had to agree. A lot of things stopped rather suddenly. Private Jennings and I were slowly picking our way through the quasi roadways, making our way towards anything that seemed safer. Occasionally, we would see one of the massively strange creatures lumbering about at a distance, looking for something to consume.

We drove on, trying to keep the pace of at least forty miles an hour. That was about as difficult as trying to sprint all out up a hill with cinderblocks tied to your calves. First off, you'd never get so bad out of luck that you ended up in that situation and if you ever did get caught up in it… well I guess no one would really know what to do. That's how we felt. That crappy feeling that sits in the pit of your stomach, the one of uncertainty and man… does it suck.

**Unknown Space: Geostationary Orbit about Unknown Planet designated Bravo-06; Six Days Later 1242 hrs (UT)**

"Fox, this is by far the most boring thing we have ever done… EVER!!!"

"Yes, I know that it is Falco, so, would you please be so kind as to shut the fuck up about it. You're not the only one who's bored to tears."

All four members of the Starfox team sat on the bridge, staring aimlessly at the little blue planet below them.

Apart from clearing several asteroids out of the way for the rest of the research fleet, the most exciting part of this job was the fact that a small, exotic, creature that had been captured for study had to be kept on board the Great Fox in one of the force field locked brig sections.

Other than that… nothing. Not one damn thing to do except exercise, talk, read, sit, or watch holo-movies.

To be incredibly blunt, the entire team was going mad with boredom. Everyone constantly fidgeted. Even Krystal had given up looking at the semi beautiful planet below and was simply sitting aimlessly on the bridge.

The bridge was completely silent for about twenty more minutes until a certain avian finally stood up and said to no one in particular, "I can't take this anymore. I'm going to go shoot some stuff. I'll be at the range."

With that, he stormed out of the room and made his way off down the corridor.

The other three team members looked back at him leaving for a brief moment and then returned their attention to the massive viewport in front of them.

The scene was beautiful and all, but it was the only thing that had been seen by the team for the past five days.

The whooshing sound of the door registered again and Fox looked back, Slippy had fallen prey to boredom as well and left the bridge, probably to go off and tinker with some sort of item.

Fox just continued to stare out the windows at the horizon created by the planet and the large void of dark space.

All of the sudden, his ear twitched at the sound of slight movement. He turned to see that Krystal had finally gotten up and had her hands reaching up behind her head and was leaning back, trying to stretch her cramped muscles.

His gaze returned to the view in front of him and he simply continued to sit. However, Krystal did not retreat as Fox had expected. Instead, she walked right up beside his command chair and leaned slightly against the back of it, as if trying to find the exact spot where Fox was looking through the window.

After a few moments of staring into the vast expanses of the space in front of them, Krystal turned her attention to Fox and sweetly stated, "I'm a little cold."

Fox turned to look at her, but before he could say anything in reply, she had lightly hopped over the armrest and was sitting on Fox's lap, her back resting lightly against his chest.

As much as she wanted to, she abstained from reading through his mind, although by the way his body had tensed up, she could pretty well guess what was going on in there without much effort. She quietly smiled to herself as she thought of his vast shyness.

They just sat there on the bridge for what seemed like an eternity and stared into space and at the planet, Fox about as happy as he could possibly be.

**The Next Day**

"Fox! Where's all the good cereal?! Did you eat it all?"

"Yes Falco, I did. I ate the cereal because there was only like half a handful left in the box."

Everyone was bored. In a situation like this, Falco would have normally made a big fuss about it and ranted and raved for an hour or so. Instead, he just tossed the empty box on the counter and sighed, returning to his original quest to find something remotely tasty to eat. Even the fiery avian was too bored to argue.

After the previous nights encounter in which Fox and Krystal, for the first time, actually sat in a closer than shoulder to shoulder proximity for more than a few brief minutes, Fox simply could not pull his mind away from her.

He thought back to sitting in the command chair, her in his lap and tried to remember every little facet of the moments that all too soon had gone; the warmth of her body, her soft fur, the slow and soothing lull of her breathing, the smell of her hair as it daintily lay in front of his muzzle.

It was an internal battle that he was losing rapidly.

"_I really like Krystal… I think I do. I don't know. What do you think I should my little subconscious friend? Got any advice?"_ He asked himself sarcastically.

"_Maybe I could put all this spare time we have to good use and try to talk to her on a personal level. Yeah, that's what I'll do."_

Newly resolved, the mercenary captain leaned back in his chair and sighed lightly, looking down at his watch in a casual manner.


	15. Chapter 15: Lost

Chapter 15:

:// Log Open/

Almost ten years now… ten years of pain and hardship for anyone that lived through the first few months of the opening attacks. It's been my job of choice so far to keep a small group of roughly two hundred and fifty people alive and well.

Two hundred and fifty… that number seems so incredibly small against the odds we've been and are currently against. It's a shock we didn't all die years ago, main reason being the diseases that have decided to spawn around the dead and decaying carcasses of the strange creatures.

It has been reported, unsurely, that a cure and vaccine for the diseases based off these creatures is currently being worked toward.

As with everything these days, that report in uncertain. What is also uncertain is the numbers of 'us' left. Randomized reports and abruptly performed censuses put the number of humans left at roughly five to ten percent of the original six point two billion persons.

/Log Close//:

**Days since research fleet departed Corneria: 67**

**Days separated from research fleet: 04**

**Location Unknown; 21 June 2020**

**1257 hrs (UT)**

Lieutenant Keeding sat with his back to a rather thick, felled tree trunk, one other member of his small squad sitting near to him against his own back rest.

He surveyed his group and sighed heavily. He had lost twenty five percent of his scout group the day they crash landed, and sure, it may have been only one person, but the brown and white husky felt as if an entire battalion had gone to waste under his command.

He didn't understand it all. How their simple operation could go so wrong so fast.

He was pulled from his thoughts as one of his squad last two squad mates came jogging back up to his position, claiming that he had both good and bad news.

"Well, Cantrell, lets have the bad first then."

The slim built cheetah nodded and continued by saying, "I've located a structure of some sort and there seems to be activity in and around it."

"Well, was that the good or bad news son?"

"Allow me to finish. The bad news is that I have never seen the beings that inhabit the, if I can call it one, base of sorts and all of them seem military. The good news, however, is that they bear absolutely no resemblance to the creatures we first encountered, seem quite intelligent, and from what I can tell, as of now, we share a common enemy with them. As I was watching them, I noticed that their base has an area that functions as a small outdoor storage area, possibly for foodstuffs. In my opinion, I believe we should attempt to re-supply after dark."

Lieutenant Keeding sat in his spot for a moment thinking the plan over and looked over to the last squad member and said, "What do you say about the plan Rogers?"

The otter, who stood a slight bit taller than the rest of species, or so she was told, looked up from her lap where she had been delicately examining a leaf and said, "I think we should do it."

Everyone nodded and moved a bit closer to listen to all the Intel that Cantrell had to offer. All of them forming a plan of action; what time to leave, where to go, and fallback points.

**Human Stronghold; designation: Zulu-One Niner**

**21 June 2020, 2243 hrs (EST)**

I sat in my quarters, my sidearm laid out in all its differing pieces upon the small desk that accompanied my cot. Weapons oil, small brushes and a cleaning rag accompanying all the pieces of steel.

I was finding the peace and quiet of cleaning my weapon very comfortable until it was interrupted by loud banging on my door.

I, as if to match the intensity of the auditory assault on my door, yelled, "Come in!!!"

One of my resident lieutenants came bursting into my room blabbering something about and attack or infiltration and aliens. I couldn't discern any of it while he was in this hysterical state.

Standing up, I gave a very simple and plain order in a rather commanding voice.

"Shut the fuck up lieutenant… get your bearings and start over."

It worked and he proceeded to explain, though a bit hastily, that there were a new set of aliens present, that they had infiltrated the base, and were captured by the security detail that had been on duty.

I nodded and said, "Where are they now?"

"In the brig sir. Collins is trying to interrogate them now."

I opened my eyes a bit wider at that and realized two things; 1) that if these aliens had been placed into the brig and were being interrogated, then they were apparently intelligent and 2) Collins did not know how to interrogate anything. He would beat a rock to a pulp to get it to talk.

I leapt into action, grabbing the parts to my pistol, I quickly placed them all back together so that it was not a functioning tool as opposed to a pile of steel. We both took off running in unison towards the brig.

**Roughly thirty minutes earlier**

Darkness had fallen over the area several hours before and the trio of anthropomorphic beings had already made their way to the edge of the base and had been watching all the happenings and various goings on within the bases outer confines.

After about two or so hours of watching the routines the guards made and where there were pauses in movement and openings that allowed them to be in the clear, the three made their move.

Sneaking very quietly through the dimly lit outskirts of the base, the small squad picked their way along a predetermined path near the outermost perimeter fence. Lieutenant Keeding raised his arm with his hand-paw closing into a fist. His other two squad mates stopping just behind him.

After a few moments pause to make sure the way was clear, he lifted the barbed wire fencing just enough for his squad to crawl under.

They continued on, slinking quietly through the dark along the fences towards the storage shed four hundred meters in front of them.

With only one hundred meters left to cover, someone yelled out at the small group for them to halt, a spotlight instantly lighting up their immediate area.

Without any hesitation, all three began to sprint headlong towards the storage shed as it would serve better cover than the open ground near the fence line.

Strange repetitive reports resounded from the tower the light was coming from and an invisible force passed through Cantrell's calf muscle. He instantly fell to the ground screaming in pain and holding his leg. Keeding and Rogers instantly changed directions one hundred and eighty degrees and recovered Cantrell, half carrying, half dragging him the last few meters.

Once his squad mates were behind the storage shed and seemingly safer, if not safer than in the open, Keeding took off running out from the opposite side of the shed and made it about fifty meters to the rear of another small concrete building before a dark fist contacted the right side of his face and all went dark immediately after.

**Inside FOB Zulu- One Niner, Brig Area**

**21 June 2020, 2246 hrs**

I had been at a full sprint for about a minute and finally arrived at the holding area for high value prisoners.

As I walked past one of the cells, I stopped and looked on at the seemingly human otter sitting against the back wall with a cheetah bearing the same seemingly human traits leaning against her, dark red blood staining a hastily applied bandage.

As much as I would have liked to, I could not stay there and look on at the two. I followed the sounds of muffled yelling to a door where, as I suspected, it only grew louder.

Opening the door with such force that the only way it could have opened any faster was if it had been kicked in, I barged into the room and found a badly beaten brown and white husky tied to a chair in the center of the room and a one, Alfred Collins standing in front of him, fists at the ready for another blow.

I gave Collins that look I give everyone when I catch them trying to do something wrong or something they have no skill in. I gave him this look for both reasons at this moment. It was a wordless order to stand down and leave.

He backed away from the husky, albeit reluctantly, and nodded at me slightly leaving me to think that maybe he misinterpreted the look I had given him. I simply returned the nod and he turned about, grasped the door handle, and closed the bulk of wood and steel behind him, leaving me alone in the room with the alien.

He looked up at me through sad eyes, and, though it may have been my imagination, I thought I could see the slight glint of a tear move out of his eye and retreat into his short facial fur.

I walked closer to him and, in apparent anticipation of being hit again, he closed his eyes and dropped his head.

I crouched down in front of him and waited for him to open his eyes again, which only took a few moments. Looking at him eye to eye, I saw what no one else had seen yet; sorrow and loss, but no anger.

He looked at me, and I back at him for about a minute until I broke the silence by inquiring, "Can you speak?"

He swallowed a lump in his throat and nodded once very slowly in response.

Taking this as a good sign, I continued on by asking, "What is your name?"

He looked at me a slight bit untrusting, but finally replied, "Lieutenant Mike Keeding."

I nodded and replied, "I am Captain John Carter. The resident commanding officer of the security forces here."

He nodded back and said nothing further, dropping his head as if in exhaustion.

I kept looking at him intently and said, "Lieutenant Keeding, I am willing to release you and your comrades if you will kindly tell me why you are here and under what circumstances caused you to be captured by one of my security details, okay?"

He looked back at me and nodded, continuing on with a very long story of how his squad was sent out from their main fleet near this planet to take some scans of the nearby moon, but someone had somehow managed to screw up a schedule. This caused for his team to be inadvertently left behind when the fleet made a jump into slipspace four days ago. Without any other choice, they crash landed their two craft on the planets surface and lost a teammate the same day to some sort of creature that seemingly came out of nowhere. Lacking food, water, and shelter, they set out across the terrain to find such things. Half way through this past day, they came across this base and after watching it, found that the small shed outside seemed to be a storage unit for food and water and were going to try to acquire some of the supplies from there and move on. That was when they got captured.

I nodded, the entire situation making far more sense to me now and said, "Alright, I'm going to untie you now, so don't try anything funny… okay."

He nodded and I pulled my knife out, moved behind the chair and slipped its blade under the zip tie around his wrists, quickly slicing through the tough plastic.

I took a step back and made sure he was not going to try anything stupid. Satisfied with his actions, I re-sheathed my knife and walked up beside him saying, "I noticed one of your team members is injured and am willing to help. I, however, will need assistance with this as I and the resident medical staff are unfamiliar with the anatomy of your teammates body. I will also see to it that your team has a good meal within the hour."

He nodded and said, "Thank you." extending his hand-paw for me to shake.

We left the room and I led him to the cell where his teammates were at, a small child standing at the door and looking through the bars at the cells only occupants.

I grabbed up the small child and set him up on my shoulders. After all, he was my kid, but not by birth. He was three and a half now. I had found him in a small town behind a dumpster when he was only about eighteen months old. He was sitting beside his mom, trying to wake her up. She'd been dead for days.

His small fingers held onto my hair as I unlocked the cell door, opening it outwardly to allow the occupants through the only exit way. I turned to the husky and said, "Please go tell them that it's alright for them to come out and we mean no harm if you and your team mean none."

He nodded and stepped past me, the small child on my shoulders reaching out and gently brushing his hand against the Lieutenants left ear as he passed. I looked up at the child and smiled a bit, setting him down on the ground and allowing him to wander off to wherever he wanted to go.

As he wandered off, I stepped into the cell and moved towards the cheetah that lay somewhat slumped against the back wall of the cell. He looked up at me through gray misty eyes and I could tell he was in serious pain.

Crouching down, I placed my right arm behind his back and my left under the crook of both his knees and lifted him off the floor. Him emitting a slight groan of pain as I easily fought gravity to lift him.

I nodded to the other two members of the lieutenants squad and they proceeded to follow me out of the cell and down the hallway, the four of us making our way to the medical wing.

As we walked through the base, people stopped and looked at us, several did double takes. We made it to the medical wing with no hitches other than that many small kids were following us and attempting to grab the otters and huskies tails without being noticed. It was somewhat futile for them to not be noticed but cute all the same as they at least attempted.

We moved into the medical bay and I laid the cheetah out on a jury rigged operating table that we used for such things as this, well, minus the surgical operation on an alien, but same idea.

As I went about gathering things, I realized that attempting to use and anesthetic could prove fatal on an alien seeing as how it would be unknown how their bodies would react, so, as I gathered supplied, I said, "So, what your name cheetah?"

This time, it was the otter that spoke up and she said, "His name is Marcus Cantrell."

"Well Marcus, I don't exactly know how much you'll appreciate this, but I'm doing it for your safety. I do not know how our anesthetics will affect your body, so, to be safe, I'll have to perform the operation without. Do you understand?"

I said this last part looking directly into his eyes and he nodded.

I took this as a cue to continue on, "Okay, I don't know the extent of the wound, but my medical staff and I will do our best to clean, disinfect, and seal the wound. Now, during the operation, you may want to bite down on this."

I pulled a one inch thick wooden dowel from the box of medical supplies I had gathered and handed it to him. He took it and placed it in between his teeth.

While I was working on the wounds' dressing and Marcus' pant leg, the three other medical personnel in the room began to lay out the, possible, necessary tools to use. Lieutenant Keeding standing beside me to help direct me away from the more delicate parts of Marcus' leg.

As I examined to wound, I noticed that I could still see the round slightly sticking out of the calf muscle. It was a twenty two caliber round, solid lead and not the usual hollow point rounds we put in those weapons.

I looked up at Marcus and said, "Alright, its probably about to hurt a lot. You ready?"

He nodded and closed his eyes, his head laying back down on the table.

I took up a pair of surgical pliers and, as gently as possible, reached into the wound and grasped the round, pulling it out quickly to make the pain be in one sharp burst rather than a drawn out affair. Upon doing this, I heard the wooden dowel crack slightly and watched as Marcus' jaw slowly eased off of the piece of wood.

I held up the round about a foot from my face to examine it. Lieutenant Keeding was also looking at it and stated, "Damn Marcus, you must have run into something pretty damn hard."

I looked at him quizzically, thinking about that statement, completely not understanding what he meant by it.

He noticed this expression on my face and looked back at me saying, "What, what's wrong?"

"You said he ran into something. What do you mean by that? He got shot."

This time, Keeding gave me the quizzical look.

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks.

"Your weapons are energy based aren't they… plasma and lasers right?"

"Yes, and that's a piece of metal. He must have run into something while he was sprinting towards the storage shed."

I chuckled a bit and said, "Our weaponry is based off kinetics and not energy. So, this is a projectile."

I was about to explain further when I heard massive amounts of shouting and screams of pain, terror, and fear. Without further notice, muffled gunfire erupted from somewhere else in the base. The radio in the room burst to life. It being set to open comm. reception didn't help.

"Keep Marcus secured and make sure he gets cleaned up properly." I shouted to the medical staff.

I ran to the door of the O.R. and grabbed one of the G-36 rifles off the rack beside the door and a bandolier of ammo for it. Little did I know that Lieutenant Keeding as well as the still unnamed otteress was following close behind me and had also grabbed a rifle, yet neglected to grab extra ammunition as they were not accustomed to it.

As I ran down the hall towards the sound of the fight, the dim light in the corridor flickered for a moment. Twenty meters ahead of us, the wall erupted into a flurry of dust and chunks of concrete as an external explosion ripped through the weather aged stone.

The lights went out and I flipped on the flashlight attached to the rifle. Moving to the hole in the wall, I looked out, floodlights lit the entire area below us. We were on the second floor up from the ground and had an excellent view of the entire battleground.

The creatures had breached the perimeter and were running amuck within the base perimeter. I flipped off the flashlight and took aim at one of the creatures, not even noticing the otter and husky crouched to my left, and opened fire. The fully automatic rat-tat-tat of the rifle ripping through the hallway and sending the two individuals beside me to the floor holding their ears. Shell casings clanged off the walls and floor, some rolling through the hole to the ground below.

The creature turned and looked back at where it had been struck from and started to charge, its attack cut short and a rocket zipped from the rooftop and contacted the beast in its center mass. Pieces of the tough exoskeleton and insides flying in all directions.

Switching my aim, I fired the remaining twelve or so rounds into a closer beast and watched as one of its legs separated from the few rounds that contacted it.

Dropping the magazine out, I pulled a fresh one and placed it into the magazine port. Before I hit the bolt release, I looked to my left to see two familiar figures attempting to block the auditory onslaught out of their ears.

I returned my attention to the beast that was just below us now and continued to fire at it, the rounds penetrating but doing nothing noticeable to slow it attempts to climb up to where we were.

Incredibly dazed, at least from what I could tell, lieutenant Keeding stood up, rifle in hands and joined me in firing at the beast. Moments later, we both had to reload. The creature silent.

I dropped the spent magazine out and replaced it with a new, reaching over and hitting the magazine release for Keeding's rifle and shoving a new magazine in for him. From watching me, he learned how to use the bolt release and triggered.

"I am going groundside, stay up here and cover me." I yelled to him.

I jumped down from the roughly ten foot drop and landed on the creatures bulk of a body. Jumping down from that, I moved further out into the open and looked back to the rooftops. All the troops and even civilians wielding weapons.

I walked through the dark of the base and looked left, right, left, right.

"_Crazy ass day I've had."_ I thought to myself.


	16. Chapter 16: Details

Chapter 16:

**Seven days after scout team went missing**

"We have no option sir. I will not allow there to be needless casualties on this operation while I and my team are in charge of the security detail!!!"

The steely eyed wolf looked the orange vulpine in the eyes and said, "I understand Captain, but it is simply out of our hands now. For all we know, they've been dead for the past six days. And what of that, Captain?"

"Then their families will want the bodies, and we do have the means to at least give them that honor."

The dark brown lupine leaned back in his chair and rubbed his chin pensively; going over the options he had in his mind.

His thoughts were interrupted as the orange vulpine in front of him added, "Major, my team and I will search for them alone. I will not take away from this fleets resources to find the scout team that is missing in action."

The major looked down at his desk for a full minute, his chin still in his right hand-paw, looked back up slowly and replied, "Your request has been granted Captain. One weeks search and rescue time. I hope to God you find what you're looking for. Happy hunting."

With that, Captain Fox McCloud stood up rigidly and saluted, the Major returning it promptly after standing to attention.

After dropping his salute, said vulpine gave one last reassuring measure to the Major in saying, "Sir, we will not let you down."

He then turned and exited the office that the Major called home most of the time. And although he fought so hard to gain permission from the Major, it wouldn't have mattered whether he had received it or not. His team was getting burned out on escorts and rock knocking, or, in layman's terms, blowing up large asteroids, as it had become quite affectionately named by Falco. He would have simply left without the authorization. He'd done it before and received commendations off of it and he'd do it again in a heartbeat, even if there was no award in order. It was just the right thing to do.

He made his way through the vast numbers of corridors and passed civilian and military personnel, all nonchalantly walking towards their next task.

He continued on, his pace considerably faster than that of the others aboard the vessel and made his way to the hangar, boarded his single craft and powered up the systems, allowing them to quickly come online and put him in control of the large craft.

He flew out of the hangar and into the dark void of space, edging closer to his home for the past two months.

**Human Stronghold; designation: Zulu-One Niner**

**29 June 2020, 0900 hrs (EST)**

:// Log Open/

We've spent thirteen days so far on this planet. Nine of which have been amongst its inhabitants who refer to themselves as humans.

Not that we aren't grateful for them to have been so hospitable, but they're technology is remedial at the least. It seems that they've neglected technological advance in their weaponry and vehicles in exchange for raw power, ruggedness, and reliability. I have watched first hand one of these humans' assault rifles go flying through the air after an explosive detonated nearby it, land with a very hard 'clunk' up to twenty meters away to only be picked right back up by another human soldier and work just as well as if it had been newly forged.

I also personally admire these humans in their sheer ability to be ingenious. Where their standard issue armors have failed them in protection against the large creatures that have destroyed most of their civilization, they built anew and modified these older armors into a protective unit so capable and versatile it has saved myself and my comrades lives twice already.

Namely, I would like to comment on this local group of humans' leader, Captain John Carter, who was the original individual to welcome us, hospitably, into his world. He is of a different caliber and breed altogether.

It seems, from what I have seen, to me that humans are just as rugged, powerful, and reliable as their weapons and vehicles, however, this John Carter far surpasses his comrades in these areas. Where all others fail, he excels. Every aspect of his being radiates command, tact, and an unprecedented calm under pressure.

As a further note, he is by far the most widely versed in all the skills these humans possess as he is capable of piloting their ground and aircraft, leading ground troops and fighting just as well alongside them.

/Log Close//:

"Lieutenant Keeding!" I yelled out across the hangar area as I disembarked from the large V-22 Osprey that just landed.

He slid something into his left cargo pocket of the new uniform I had lent to him and hopped off the crate he had been sitting on and jogged up to me.

"Yes Captain Carter." He said as he came to a stop right in front of me.

I regarded him for a moment as I wondered what it was he put into his pocket, but quickly dismissed the thought and motioned behind me to the craft saying, "one of my scout teams found your downed crafts a day ago. I have requisitioned this aircraft from a neighboring base to bring back parts from the craft you were telling me of."

He nodded, tears almost seeming to form in his eyes as he said, "Thank you."

I nodded and said, "They didn't give it to us, so we're heading out in five."

He nodded and ran off to get Rogers.

A moment later, both of them emerged from the hangar doorway, geared up and ready to move. Each holding their newly issued suppressed rifles. G-36's with red dot sights, three point sling and the ever important silencers, to save their ears of course. That, of course, was an upgrade I made certain they had.

We boarded the troop transport with just the bare minimum in personnel. The pilots, a few engineers with portable acetylene torches, the two anthros, my long time friend, Ben Baker, and myself. I would have taken Blake King and/or Jessica Cole, but they had just recently gotten hitched. I decided not to bother them till later.

We lifted off the runway, turned and flew over the base on the heading for the downed group of aircraft.

After we left the two klick safe zone around the base, Ben and I bumped fists and continued to look steely eyed out the rear of the transport where one of us manned a mounted gatling gun. A weapon in the human arsenal neither of the aliens onboard had seen yet, so, for good measure, I made sure that every fifth round was a tracer. Reason being because when fifty rounds a second are leaving the barrels, it pretty much looks like a laser cannon.

We flew on out over the wasteland and towards the west, the worst direction to travel outside of the safe zone.


End file.
